Categories
Anti-Asian Violence Uncategorized

Investigate the Wintersburg Church in Huntington Beach Fire as a Possible Hate Crime

From Neighborhood Safety Companions:


Historic Wintersburgh Press Conference March 19, 2022
https://safetywalks.org/investigate-wintersburg/

On February 25, 2022, fire destroyed 2 of the 6 buildings at Historic Wintersburg, and is now under investigation for possible arson. Republic Services, owners of the property, demolished both buildings several hours after the fire, destroying evidence for the investigation. They previously applied to demolish all 6 historic buildings so they can develop or sell. In the lead up to the fire, Historic Wintersburg volunteers have been attacked by racists on social media, stalked, photographed, and been subjected to other acts of intimidation against the preservation project.

 

Mary Urashima, organizer for the project, has requested that organizations and individuals write letters to the Huntington Beach mayor and city council demanding:

 

  • An arson investigation. 
  • That Republic Services cooperate with government agencies to help preserve the buildings.
  • To bring Republic Services to the bargaining table to arrange a purchase of the property by preservationists. 

 

The addresses to email are Mayor Barbara Delgleize, [email protected]. City Council, [email protected]. (Urashima)

Commenters on social media have demanded independent state and federal level investigations, which have been done before, to investigate the Fountain Valley PD in the 1980s and 1990s. (Hayashida, NSC)

 

This fire happened as hate incidents have skyrocketed across the country. A recent report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism said hate incidents, which include hate crimes, have increased 339% from 2020 through 2021. (Yam)

 

Attacks against Asian Places of Worship in 2020 and 2021, locally, have been numerous and dramatic.

 

  • Six Buddhist temples in Orange County were vandalized, and people were verbally harassed, in November and December of 2020. (Introvigne, Kandil)
  • Higashi Honganji in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo was vandalized, and arson attempted. (Peralta)
  • Konko Church, a Shinto shrine in Boyle Heights, was attacked by arsonists twice. (Yamamoto)
  • An old Japanese American church in Sacramento was vandalized. (CBS Sacramento, CAIR)
  • Two Seattle, WA churches were vandalized with graffiti including “China, you will pay,” “go home” and “f–k China,” even though only 5% of the congregation was Chinese. (Chen, Esteban)
  • Three statues were destroyed at Wat Lao Santitham, a Buddhist temple in the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas. (Stills)
  • In Calgary, Canada, a Vietnamese Canadian church was burned. (CBC News)

 

Other sources report additional incidents at temples, mosques, video conference church meetings. (Kandil, ACLU, Borja)

 

Vandalism against ethnic churches should be understood intersectionality, as not only an attack against a place of worship, and not only as an attack against a specific minority, but an attack against the intersection of the two. 

 

Racists, typically white Christians, have attacked Black Christian churches and other houses of worship since they originated, because the serve as community political centers to defend Black people, and increase Black power. (Boddie)  Japanese American faith organizations have similar functions: popular mobilization, protection, and power. 

 

Causes for anti-Asian violence and vandalism are numerous, but it’s often irrational, where general anger from one situation results in violence against an Asian person or Asian institution completely unrelated to that situation.

 

  • China is blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic, and Asian people in western countries experience rising rates of violence. (Yam)
  • The infamous murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, was by autoworkers angry about international competition from cars made in Japan. (Guillermo)
  • In 2016, when North Korea was in the news for nuclear missile testing, a Korean American church in Buena Park was vandalized with swastikas. (Ryan)
  • In 1984 three Vietnam war veterans burned a Tibetan Buddhist temple after dissatisfaction with Veterans Affairs, a US government agency. (Kandil)

 

The fire at this historic site is happening at the same time that reactionaries are mounting an attack on “Critical Race Theory”, or CRT, in the state legislatures. CRT is a legal theory, but their use of CRT is a code word for Ethnic Studies and accurate U.S. history. It’s a push back against teaching minority histories in the schools. (Sawchuck) 

 

It’s against this ambient and legislative attack on history education that we must consider this fire could have been arson, motivated by hatred or anger at a racial minority.

 

References

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence History

Resistance to State Violence Against Japanese Americans

https://50objects.org/object/the-demolished-monument/

Seventy eight years ago today — also a Sunday — James Hatsuaki Wakasa was shot to death at 7:30 p.m. at Topaz, Utah, by a guard tower sentry. After we posted a story about the killing, titled “The Demolished Monument,” we received a letter from an 86-year-old Ohio reader who was a child at Topaz at the time. He shared some memories that have haunted him for years.

50 Objects / Stories of the American Japanese Incarceration – Nancy Ukai Tweet
James Hatsuaki Wakasa - National Archives

See also, “The Demolished Monument”

James Hatsuaki Wakasa
and the erasure of memory

At the former Topaz concentration camp in Utah, there’s only dry grass where a concrete monument once stood, to mark where an innocent man was killed by a guard tower sentry. The man was walking his dog after dinner. HIs name was James Hatsuaki Wakasa.

Categories
Anti-Asian Violence Healthcare Housing

CDPH: Oppose the Pacifica “Transition Plan!”

PANA statement to the California Department of Public Health calls for the rejection of Pacifica Companies’ March 29, 2021 proposal to mass evict all Japanese American and Japanese seniors aged mostly in their 90’s to 100’s out of the Sakura Intermediate Care Facility (ICF) in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. This proposal will accelerate the deaths of these already-fragile seniors and exacerbate displacement/gentrification in Boyle Heights.


We call upon the CDPH to act in support of the health interests of the seniors of the Sakura ICF. Bilingual care is a lifeline issue. Bi-cultural services is a health issue. Please stand upon the right side of history. Help lead a new direction in California politics away from its racist past and protect the well-being of these seniors by rejecting this harmful “Transition Plan.” – Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA)

Categories
Healthcare Housing

The Intersection of Housing and Healthcare and the Fight to win Full Equality


Photo (pictured from left, with age, birthplace, generation): Michi Sakatani, 102, Kukui Haele, Hawaii, Kibei/Nisei; Yasuko Hattori, 101, Osaka, Shin Issei; Pauline Sakata, 100, Bowles, CA, Nisei; Jack Kunitomi, 100, Los Angeles, Nisei; Shigeko Kishimoto, Gardena, Kibei/Nisei; Kiyono Shigetomi, 108, Hiroshima, Issei. (Photo by Yumi Yuge)

“Save Our Seniors (SOS) is an all-volunteer network of individuals and organizations that is working to secure the continuation of bilingual and bi-cultural care and services for seniors residing at the facilities formerly known as Keiro Nursing and Retirement homes, a Japanese American institution for nearly fifty years. To this day, due to inequalities in the U.S. public health system, no other such facilities exist. Because of this context, the lives of the remaining residents are endangered by the profit objectives of the owners of these facilities.”

PANA members have been playing a key role in this fight as members of the SOS Network. PANA members have helped to organize and mobilize for mass events, assisted with social media promotion and are working to win support for AB 279, which would help stop evicitions of seniors during the pandemic.  PANA views this fight at part of the larger effort to win equality in healthcare and to win Medicare-for-All in CA, such as by winning AB 1400.


Sakura Gardens and Sakura ICF

STOP EVICTIONS OF JAPANESE AMERICAN SENIORS!!!

Take Action with SOS Network – NOW:
Click Here


Save Our Seniors Network
Save Our Seniors Network
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