I used to believe that patriotism was better than nationalism — to have pride in a place without the superiority complex of insisting that the country that I was born in or that I have chosen in adulthood is greater than all of the other nations.
That old notion of patriotism was devoid of history, denying the histories of gore and genocide, deprivation and coercion that define any amassing of land, labor and enough resources to proclaim “We are our own people and a unique place from all the places around us!”
So, I feel some solace when reading a little history of the Redress Movement, according to John Tateishi who stated “[w]hen we brought up this issue of reparations, it was so against [that patriotism].” I remember the evening in 1988 when ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings broadcast the spectacle of multiple Japanese-American elders, some of whom were military veterans, receiving medals and kind words at a White House ceremony. I would not have remembered it was during the Reagan administration aside from this NPR story, which also noted that every survivor received $20,000 from the federal government, which is the equivalent of $53,000 in 2024 dollars according to the US Inflation Calculator.
I have not drawn a straight line or a broken equal sign between reparations and patriotism. Earlier this week, I was naming how there is a map between abolition and reparations, but I do not yet know what goes on that map. Or even the format: is it more of a treasure hunt or an atlas?
Another quote from the interview of John Tateishi is:
There is this view that [in the campaign], there was a kind of campfire kumbaya feeling. But it wasn’t like that at all. There was an awful lot of conflict, a lot of disagreements, and a lot of anger.
This reveals how shared memory is a spotty type of recollection, when there is minimizing and biased editing that occurs so that some stories are repeated often and other details are obliterated and never repeated.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 