OK...so tell me what conference starts at 5pm? Guess I cant complain. I did get a chance to walk around LA. Never ask the bell hops were to go within walking distance. I started my journey at the Historical Grand Market. Silly me thought it was a shopping area, it was not..... more like a bad episode of Bizarre Foods. I saw things that no human should eat. Since I am 40 +, I have bladder issues. So finding the rest room was a great relief...not! I run down the steps, trip over my own feet, lunged for the door only to find out I need a quarter to enter....really? So there I am doing the pee pee dance, when some kind soul paid my way to use the bathroom. For 25 cents you would think it would be remotely clean...lets just say the bathroom at Penn Station is a palace. As I stood there trying to decide if washing my hands would be a wise idea, the women at the sink pulled out her teeth and began washing them in the sink....no hand washing for me...thank goodness for hand sanitizer.
Back on the street, I wondered why I had walked 6 blocks. It was then I noticed the homeless man who had been sleeping on a bench, laying in traffic.....unlike NY, the people in LA do respond to homeless people laying in the street. Traffic stopped and safety personnel came out of now where on their bikes. All this was way too much excitement for me. I decided to head back to the hotel and attempt to find a museum. On the way back I saw a sign for the mall....I walked up three flights of steps hoping I would find a shoe store only to find a deli and a radio shack. No shoes, no clothes...no anything. I studied my map and noticed that the Japanese Museum was close by. On my way I came across Tokyo Village, a nice little shopping area with way too many restaurants. I finally arrived at the museum and while at first not impressed, I found myself mesmerized for 2 hours.
As we all know, today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. My father, a WWII veteran, who served in the Pacific always spoke about the event that propelled the United States into the "big one". My father was deployed to Japan after the bomb and told great stories of the country and its people. Although he was there with the enemy, he feel in love with the culture. He told stories of how the Japanese soldiers would not bother the African American troops because they said they had enough to deal with back home. The museum chronicles the history of the Japanese in America. Like all immigrants they came here for a better life. Its hard to tell if during the early years life was better here for them or not.
After the attack at Pearl Harbor we all know that many Japanese Americans were placed in interment camps. As I looked at the pictures and read the stories tears came to my eyes. The very same young men whose families were being detained did not become bitter over their situation, but stood up and put on the uniform of the very country that had detained them. It made me think of my father's war stories...he was in a segregated infantry troop. He saw battle in the south pacific and he returned to the United States not a war hero but a Ni&&#$. He was debriefed on a segregated base in Georgia. He and his fellow black soldiers was not allowed on certain places on the base. However, the prisoners of war who were being transferred back to their countries had free range of the clubs, pools, mess halls....
I asked my self a question while I was in the museum.....why do we love this country? Trust me I do love my country, I proudly wore the uniform and would not live anywhere else, but I wonder have we learned anything from our mistakes? We have put people on plantations, reservations, internment camps....are we done? Have we realized that this was a deep dark time in our history that we should learn from and never repeat.
I wonder....on one of the walls in the museum it read "never forget"....have we forgotten? I think about the last 10 years....911 like Pearl Harbor was a vicious attack on our country. 911 was even more vicious because it was not an attack to our military but to our unarmed civilians. Its an event that will be remembered just like Pearl Harbor. Although we did not round up all the Muslims or individuals from Islamic countries and put them in internment camps, many wished we had. Many Muslim/Islamic Americans have become targets for hate crimes, profiling and unjust treatment.
I hate to admit it, but when I travel I am suspicious of every person I see who looks like they may be from and Islamic country. I dislike myself for feeling that way because I know first hand what it feels like to be judged for the color of my skin. Many of these people I fear in the airports are Americans...born and breed here in the USA. Many of them would die for this country and have no ties to any terrorist networks. Some are not even Muslim, but it would not matter if they were. The point is that I am judging them for who I think they are and not for who they truly are.
Have we forgotten our past mistakes..if so we are destine to repeat them . I learned something today...I knew about the camp but today I learned about the people ...the Americans who lived it. I learned that I have a responsibility to learn something new everyday and to love my fellow man. I may not be able to stop injustice in the world, but I can make sure I am not part of it. I will never forget!
