Why I love a country that once betrayed me
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0:00 - 0:05I'm a veteran of the starship Enterprise.
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0:05 - 0:08I soared through the galaxy
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0:08 - 0:11driving a huge starship
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0:11 - 0:12with a crew made up of people
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0:12 - 0:15from all over this world,
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0:15 - 0:18many different races, many different cultures,
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0:18 - 0:20many different heritages,
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0:20 - 0:22all working together,
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0:22 - 0:26and our mission was to explore strange new worlds,
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0:26 - 0:30to seek out new life and new civilizations,
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0:30 - 0:35to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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0:35 - 0:36Well —
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0:36 - 0:42(Applause) —
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0:43 - 0:48I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan
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0:48 - 0:50who went to America,
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0:50 - 0:53boldly going to a strange new world,
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0:53 - 0:56seeking new opportunities.
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0:56 - 0:59My mother was born in Sacramento, California.
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0:59 - 1:02My father was a San Franciscan.
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1:02 - 1:05They met and married in Los Angeles,
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1:05 - 1:08and I was born there.
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1:08 - 1:11I was four years old
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1:11 - 1:12when Pearl Harbor was bombed
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1:12 - 1:17on December 7, 1941 by Japan,
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1:17 - 1:21and overnight, the world was plunged
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1:21 - 1:25into a world war.
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1:25 - 1:28America suddenly was swept up
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1:28 - 1:32by hysteria.
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1:32 - 1:33Japanese-Americans,
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1:33 - 1:36American citizens of Japanese ancestry,
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1:36 - 1:38were looked on
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1:38 - 1:42with suspicion and fear
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1:42 - 1:45and with outright hatred
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1:45 - 1:47simply because we happened to look like
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1:47 - 1:50the people that bombed Pearl Harbor.
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1:50 - 1:53And the hysteria grew and grew
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1:53 - 1:57until in February 1942,
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1:57 - 1:59the president of the United States,
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1:59 - 2:01Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
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2:01 - 2:04ordered all Japanese-Americans
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2:04 - 2:06on the West Coast of America
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2:06 - 2:09to be summarily rounded up
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2:09 - 2:12with no charges, with no trial,
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2:12 - 2:15with no due process.
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2:15 - 2:17Due process, this is a core pillar
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2:17 - 2:19of our justice system.
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2:19 - 2:21That all disappeared.
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2:21 - 2:23We were to be rounded up
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2:23 - 2:28and imprisoned in 10 barbed-wire prison camps
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2:28 - 2:32in some of the most desolate places in America:
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2:32 - 2:35the blistering hot desert of Arizona,
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2:35 - 2:39the sultry swamps of Arkansas,
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2:39 - 2:42the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado,
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2:42 - 2:48and two of the most desolate places in California.
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2:48 - 2:53On April 20th, I celebrated my fifth birthday,
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2:53 - 2:56and just a few weeks after my birthday,
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2:56 - 2:59my parents got my younger brother,
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2:59 - 3:01my baby sister and me
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3:01 - 3:03up very early one morning,
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3:03 - 3:06and they dressed us hurriedly.
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3:06 - 3:08My brother and I were in the living room
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3:08 - 3:11looking out the front window,
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3:11 - 3:15and we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway.
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3:15 - 3:20They carried bayonets on their rifles.
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3:20 - 3:22They stomped up the front porch
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3:22 - 3:25and banged on the door.
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3:25 - 3:27My father answered it,
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3:27 - 3:32and the soldiers ordered us out of our home.
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3:32 - 3:34My father gave my brother and me
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3:34 - 3:36small luggages to carry,
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3:36 - 3:39and we walked out and stood on the driveway
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3:39 - 3:42waiting for our mother to come out,
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3:42 - 3:46and when my mother finally came out,
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3:46 - 3:49she had our baby sister in one arm,
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3:49 - 3:52a huge duffel bag in the other,
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3:52 - 3:57and tears were streaming down both her cheeks.
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3:57 - 4:01I will never be able to forget that scene.
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4:01 - 4:05It is burned into my memory.
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4:05 - 4:08We were taken from our home
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4:08 - 4:11and loaded on to train cars
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4:11 - 4:14with other Japanese-American families.
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4:14 - 4:15There were guards stationed
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4:15 - 4:19at both ends of each car,
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4:19 - 4:21as if we were criminals.
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4:21 - 4:26We were taken two thirds of
the way across the country, -
4:26 - 4:30rocking on that train for four days and three nights,
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4:30 - 4:34to the swamps of Arkansas.
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4:34 - 4:36I still remember the barbed wire fence
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4:36 - 4:38that confined me.
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4:38 - 4:41I remember the tall sentry tower
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4:41 - 4:45with the machine guns pointed at us.
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4:45 - 4:48I remember the searchlight that followed me
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4:48 - 4:49when I made the night runs
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4:49 - 4:52from my barrack to the latrine.
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4:52 - 4:55But to five-year-old me,
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4:55 - 4:57I thought it was kind of nice that they'd lit the way
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4:57 - 5:00for me to pee.
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5:00 - 5:02I was a child,
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5:02 - 5:05too young to understand the circumstances
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5:05 - 5:07of my being there.
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5:07 - 5:12Children are amazingly adaptable.
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5:12 - 5:15What would be grotesquely abnormal
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5:15 - 5:18became my normality
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5:18 - 5:22in the prisoner of war camps.
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5:22 - 5:25It became routine for me to line up three times a day
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5:25 - 5:30to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall.
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5:30 - 5:32It became normal for me to go with my father
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5:32 - 5:35to bathe in a mass shower.
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5:35 - 5:40Being in a prison, a barbed-wire prison camp,
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5:40 - 5:43became my normality.
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5:43 - 5:45When the war ended,
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5:45 - 5:47we were released,
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5:47 - 5:49and given a one-way ticket
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5:49 - 5:53to anywhere in the United States.
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5:53 - 5:54My parents decided to go back home
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5:54 - 5:57to Los Angeles,
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5:57 - 6:01but Los Angeles was not a welcoming place.
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6:01 - 6:03We were penniless.
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6:03 - 6:05Everything had been taken from us,
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6:05 - 6:08and the hostility was intense.
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6:08 - 6:11Our first home was on Skid Row
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6:11 - 6:15in the lowest part of our city,
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6:15 - 6:18living with derelicts, drunkards
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6:18 - 6:20and crazy people,
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6:20 - 6:23the stench of urine all over,
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6:23 - 6:26on the street, in the alley,
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6:26 - 6:28in the hallway.
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6:28 - 6:31It was a horrible experience,
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6:31 - 6:34and for us kids, it was terrorizing.
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6:34 - 6:37I remember once
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6:37 - 6:40a drunkard came staggering down,
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6:40 - 6:42fell down right in front of us,
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6:42 - 6:44and threw up.
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6:44 - 6:49My baby sister said, "Mama, let's go back home,"
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6:49 - 6:51because behind barbed wires
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6:51 - 6:54was for us
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6:54 - 6:57home.
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6:57 - 6:59My parents worked hard
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6:59 - 7:01to get back on their feet.
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7:01 - 7:02We had lost everything.
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7:02 - 7:04They were at the middle of their lives
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7:04 - 7:06and starting all over.
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7:06 - 7:08They worked their fingers to the bone,
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7:08 - 7:12and ultimately they were able
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7:12 - 7:14to get the capital together to buy
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7:14 - 7:17a three-bedroom home in a nice neighborhood.
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7:17 - 7:19And I was a teenager,
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7:19 - 7:21and I became very curious
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7:21 - 7:24about my childhood imprisonment.
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7:24 - 7:27I had read civics books that told me about
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7:27 - 7:31the ideals of American democracy.
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7:31 - 7:33All men are created equal,
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7:33 - 7:36we have an inalienable right
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7:36 - 7:41to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
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7:41 - 7:43and I couldn't quite make that fit
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7:43 - 7:47with what I knew to be my childhood imprisonment.
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7:47 - 7:49I read history books,
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7:49 - 7:52and I couldn't find anything about it.
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7:52 - 7:56And so I engaged my father after dinner
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7:56 - 8:00in long, sometimes heated conversations.
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8:00 - 8:03We had many, many conversations like that,
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8:03 - 8:06and what I got from them
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8:06 - 8:08was my father's wisdom.
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8:08 - 8:10He was the one that suffered the most
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8:10 - 8:14under those conditions of imprisonment,
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8:14 - 8:18and yet he understood American democracy.
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8:18 - 8:20He told me that our democracy
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8:20 - 8:23is a people's democracy,
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8:23 - 8:26and it can be as great as the people can be,
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8:26 - 8:31but it is also as fallible as people are.
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8:31 - 8:33He told me that American democracy
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8:33 - 8:37is vitally dependent on good people
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8:37 - 8:41who cherish the ideals of our system
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8:41 - 8:45and actively engage in the process
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8:45 - 8:47of making our democracy work.
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8:47 - 8:51And he took me to a campaign headquarters —
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8:51 - 8:55the governor of Illinois was
running for the presidency — -
8:55 - 9:00and introduced me to American electoral politics.
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9:00 - 9:02And he also told me about
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9:02 - 9:04young Japanese-Americans
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9:04 - 9:07during the Second World War.
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9:07 - 9:10When Pearl Harbor was bombed,
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9:10 - 9:13young Japanese-Americans,
like all young Americans, -
9:13 - 9:15rushed to their draft board
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9:15 - 9:19to volunteer to fight for our country.
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9:19 - 9:21That act of patriotism
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9:21 - 9:25was answered with a slap in the face.
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9:25 - 9:28We were denied service,
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9:28 - 9:34and categorized as enemy non-alien.
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9:34 - 9:37It was outrageous to be called an enemy
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9:37 - 9:41when you're volunteering to fight for your country,
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9:41 - 9:45but that was compounded with the word "non-alien,"
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9:45 - 9:48which is a word that means
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9:48 - 9:52"citizen" in the negative.
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9:52 - 9:56They even took the word "citizen" away from us,
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9:56 - 10:00and imprisoned them for a whole year.
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10:00 - 10:02And then the government realized
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10:02 - 10:07that there's a wartime manpower shortage,
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10:07 - 10:11and as suddenly as they'd rounded us up,
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10:11 - 10:13they opened up the military for service
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10:13 - 10:16by young Japanese-Americans.
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10:16 - 10:19It was totally irrational,
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10:19 - 10:21but the amazing thing,
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10:21 - 10:23the astounding thing,
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10:23 - 10:25is that thousands of young
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10:25 - 10:28Japanese-American men and women
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10:28 - 10:32again went from behind those barbed-wire fences,
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10:32 - 10:36put on the same uniform as that of our guards,
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10:36 - 10:39leaving their families in imprisonment,
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10:39 - 10:42to fight for this country.
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10:42 - 10:44They said that they were going to fight
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10:44 - 10:47not only to get their families out
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10:47 - 10:49from behind those barbed-wire fences,
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10:49 - 10:53but because they cherished the very ideal
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10:53 - 10:55of what our government stands for,
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10:55 - 10:57should stand for,
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10:57 - 10:59and that was being abrogated
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10:59 - 11:03by what was being done.
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11:03 - 11:05All men are created equal.
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11:05 - 11:09And they went to fight for this country.
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11:09 - 11:11They were put into a segregated
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11:11 - 11:13all Japanese-American unit
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11:13 - 11:16and sent to the battlefields of Europe,
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11:16 - 11:19and they threw themselves into it.
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11:19 - 11:22They fought with amazing,
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11:22 - 11:25incredible courage and valor.
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11:25 - 11:29They were sent out on the most dangerous missions
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11:29 - 11:32and they sustained the highest combat casualty rate
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11:32 - 11:36of any unit proportionally.
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11:36 - 11:39There is one battle that illustrates that.
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11:39 - 11:42It was a battle for the Gothic Line.
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11:42 - 11:44The Germans were embedded
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11:44 - 11:47in this mountain hillside,
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11:47 - 11:48rocky hillside,
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11:48 - 11:51in impregnable caves,
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11:51 - 11:54and three allied battalions
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11:54 - 11:56had been pounding away at it
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11:56 - 11:57for six months,
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11:57 - 12:00and they were stalemated.
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12:00 - 12:03The 442nd was called in
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12:03 - 12:06to add to the fight,
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12:06 - 12:08but the men of the 442nd
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12:08 - 12:11came up with a unique
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12:11 - 12:14but dangerous idea:
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12:14 - 12:16The backside of the mountain
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12:16 - 12:18was a sheer rock cliff.
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12:18 - 12:22The Germans thought an attack from the backside
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12:22 - 12:24would be impossible.
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12:24 - 12:28The men of the 442nd decided to do the impossible.
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12:28 - 12:32On a dark, moonless night,
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12:32 - 12:36they began scaling that rock wall,
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12:36 - 12:40a drop of more than 1,000 feet,
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12:40 - 12:43in full combat gear.
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12:43 - 12:46They climbed all night long
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12:46 - 12:49on that sheer cliff.
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12:50 - 12:52In the darkness,
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12:52 - 12:54some lost their handhold
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12:54 - 12:56or their footing
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12:56 - 12:58and they fell to their deaths
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12:58 - 13:00in the ravine below.
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13:00 - 13:05They all fell silently.
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13:05 - 13:07Not a single one cried out,
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13:07 - 13:10so as not to give their position away.
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13:10 - 13:14The men climbed for eight hours straight,
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13:14 - 13:17and those who made it to the top
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13:17 - 13:22stayed there until the first break of light,
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13:22 - 13:25and as soon as light broke,
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13:25 - 13:27they attacked.
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13:27 - 13:28The Germans were surprised,
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13:28 - 13:30and they took the hill
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13:30 - 13:33and broke the Gothic Line.
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13:33 - 13:35A six-month stalemate
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13:35 - 13:37was broken by the 442nd
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13:37 - 13:40in 32 minutes.
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13:40 - 13:44It was an amazing act,
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13:44 - 13:47and when the war ended,
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13:47 - 13:50the 442nd returned to the United States
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13:50 - 13:53as the most decorated unit
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13:53 - 13:55of the entire Second World War.
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13:55 - 13:58They were greeted back on the White House Lawn
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13:58 - 14:01by President Truman, who said to them,
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14:01 - 14:04"You fought not only the enemy
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14:04 - 14:09but prejudice, and you won."
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14:09 - 14:12They are my heroes.
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14:12 - 14:15They clung to their belief
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14:15 - 14:18in the shining ideals of this country,
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14:18 - 14:23and they proved that being an American
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14:23 - 14:26is not just for some people,
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14:26 - 14:31that race is not how we define being an American.
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14:31 - 14:35They expanded what it means to be an American,
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14:35 - 14:37including Japanese-Americans
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14:37 - 14:41that were feared and suspected and hated.
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14:41 - 14:45They were change agents,
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14:45 - 14:47and they left for me
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14:47 - 14:49a legacy.
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14:49 - 14:51They are my heroes
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14:51 - 14:53and my father is my hero,
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14:53 - 14:55who understood democracy
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14:55 - 14:59and guided me through it.
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14:59 - 15:02They gave me a legacy,
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15:02 - 15:05and with that legacy comes a responsibility,
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15:05 - 15:08and I am dedicated
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15:08 - 15:10to making my country
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15:10 - 15:13an even better America,
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15:13 - 15:15to making our government
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15:15 - 15:18an even truer democracy,
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15:18 - 15:22and because of the heroes that I have
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15:22 - 15:26and the struggles that we've gone through,
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15:26 - 15:28I can stand before you
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15:28 - 15:31as a gay Japanese-American,
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15:31 - 15:33but even more than that,
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15:33 - 15:37I am a proud American.
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15:37 - 15:39Thank you very much.
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15:39 - 15:41(Applause)
- Title:
- Why I love a country that once betrayed me
- Speaker:
- George Takei
- Description:
-
When he was a child, George Takei and his family were forced into an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, as a “security" measure during World War II. 70 years later, Takei looks back at how the camp shaped his surprising, personal definition of patriotism and democracy.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:58
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Morton Bast approved English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Madeleine Aronson accepted English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Madeleine Aronson edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me | ||
Madeleine Aronson edited English subtitles for Why I love a country that once betrayed me |