After some thought about whether to address last week’s election, I opted to address just one aspect of what we have been told will happen by that candidate who prevailed. We were told by the man who, come Jan. 20, 2025, will be my president. I use that pronoun purposely even though it is no secret to those who read this column that I am not, nor ever have been, a fan of Donald J. Trump, but in 68 days he will become my president.
Contrary to the actions of that man four years ago, that is how our American system works: when you lose, you peacefully turn over the reins of power to the victor so the country, for good or for bad, keeps operating. Campaign promises are often the butt of jokes because of how often many of them never see fruition when the candidate becomes the office holder; in this election, we have heard Mr. Trump hammer home three things he will do upon taking the Oval Office.
The incoming president must come through on immediate drilling for fossil fuels to please the big oil interests, he must immediately shut down the southern border, and he must immediately begin mass deportations of anyone his administration deems a threat to national security and/or national economic interests. Let’s take a quick look at that last promise to America this billionaire white boy raised in luxury has made toward the people many of us have spent our lives living among.
To put some perspective on how this national round-up of undesirables will take place in Monterey County, we need to look back to a time when another race of people was taken into custody and sent to internment camps. After the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the U.S. fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war upon Japan, which it did the day after the attack. This declaration immediately put all Japanese living along the West Coast in the crosshairs of white people who, though they had lived and worked alongside these same Japanese, now saw them as a threat to national security. Wild stories about California Japanese abounded, including those who were born in Japan but had been living in America for years, decades in many cases, and their American-born children; one such story claiming workers in melon fields harvested large arrows in the middle of fields pointing to strategic military sites. Pure hogwash churned out by neighbors turned bigots.
Bowing to this sudden mistrust of a heretofore peaceful and hardworking people of color, FDR did not turn to Congress for action but instead on Feb. 19, 1942, issued Executive Order 9066 subjecting 117,000 citizens to immediate and forcible removal to seven internment camps spread throughout the western states. Of that number, approximately 3,500 were from Monterey County, where they were removed from their homes, farms and business; and both adults and children were separated from friends they had known for years, grew up with. There is much more to this story, but space does not allow, so we will look at an event in Monterey County three years and three months later, on May 11, 1945.
When the war ended, the Japanese (at least those who did not serve in the military fighting the Nazis) were released from exile in the camps and free to return to their towns, homes, farms and business. Free to, but in most cases not allowed to because their previous lives were gone; taken by the same people who turned on them three years earlier. But on the date mentioned above, the Monterey Peninsula Herald printed a petition signed by over 440 people (John Steinbeck and Robinsons Jeffers among them) stating that those Japanese returning to Monterey County would have their properties restored to them. For those more interested in this time, there is a documentary DVD in the King City Library on the petition and its signers; or you can borrow a book from my meager library, “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatusi Houston and James D. Houston. Now, to the present.
Back in 1942, it was easy to identify a person of Japanese descent so the act of rounding them up was very easy; most Japanese willingly but reluctantly (and fearfully, I should think) arrived at the bus and train stations as directed by civil and military authorities. But the then number of Japanese, 3,500, is small compared to the now number of Mexicans and Latinos living in Monterey County. According to 2022 data, Monterey County has a population of 432,858, of which 263,285 are Mexican or Latino, which at 60.8% makes them the largest ethnic group in the county.
Now, just how is Mr. Trump’s minions, whoever they may be, going to determine which of this number are to stay and which are to go? Does the incoming administration believe all those who know they are in the country going to just turn themselves in and face internment camp life until they can be deported back to whatever hellhole they escaped from? I foresee a city by city, town by town, block by block, house by house scenario that will disrupt not just those here illegally, but those who may fall under the new rules; especially those born in America to undocumented parents, many who have been here for decades and generations.
Should the trucks and buses roll into South County in search of our fellow residents, how will those who voted for Mr. Trump react? Will they own their choice; will they aid in the round-up of peaceful people? If you truly believe this type of measure is needed to keep us (and apparently our pets) safe, will you stand by your decision that this man is a worthy leader, and help send people off to an unknown and possibly dangerous fate? Anyhoo, just food for thought.
Take care. Peace.
