William T. Fujioka was shaken to his core as masked immigration enforcement agents descended on the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo last Thursday.
Armed with rifles and zip ties, agents swarmed toward the museum’s National Center for the Preservation of Democracy — a site exploring “the rights, freedoms, and fragility of democracy” — where Gov. Gavin Newsom and other elected officials gathered for a press conference about a redistricting plan to counter President Trump’s efforts to maintain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
During their patrol, agents detained a man delivering strawberries on the same grounds where, in 1942, Japanese American families were forced to board buses for concentration camps.
“That’s hallowed ground,” Fujioka, the chair of the Japanese American National Museum Board of Trustees, told Boyle Heights Beat. “It’s a place of purpose. It’s a place where our community had to deal with a gross violation of social justice, civil rights and due process.”
Community plans Day of Action in response
On Saturday, the museum, along with the Little Tokyo Historical Society, Nikkei Progressives, and the Manzanar Committee, is hosting a “Day of Action” to “defend the truth of WWII Japanese American incarceration history.” WWII incarceration survivors are expected to be at the event, which will be held at the Japanese American National Museum Democracy Plaza.
Fujioka said Saturday’s turnout “must reflect the diversity of our community.”
“There should be this strong sense of community and solidarity. I’m actually concerned there’s not more voices against what’s going on right now,” said Fujioka, who previously served as L.A.’s city administrative officer.
“If anyone thinks this is only affecting immigrants, and primarily Latino immigrants. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to expand,” he added. “They’re going after the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the Chinese, and the Japanese who overextend their visas. They’re going after everyone and anyone who’s not white.”
A painful echo of history
To Fujioka, the raids — which have targeted mostly immigrants with no criminal convictions, including day laborers and street vendors — are an “absolute parallel” to the thousands of people of Japanese heritage, including U.S. citizens, who were forcefully removed from their West Coast homes.
“Because of our history, our museum and our community is proud to stand up for immigrants,” said Fujioka, 73.
The Japanese American National Museum swiftly condemned last week’s enforcement operation as “a deliberate act of provocation,” noting: “That history is part of our DNA and the reason we exist.” With other art institutions, the museum also stood against “the unjustified police violence and the presence of the National Guard” in response to the protests against the raids earlier this summer.
But even before the raids, the museum pledged to “scrub nothing” from their websites as many organizations began removing any references to DEI out of fear of losing federal money. “You can’t sacrifice legacy and a commitment to social justice for money,” Fujioka said.
A third-generation Japanese American, Fujioka was raised in Boyle Heights and Montebello after the Second World War. His paternal grandfather, Fred Jiro Fujioka, owned and operated the largest Oldsmobile dealership in the western U.S. and sold cars, trucks, and tractors to Japanese farmers and families. He lost everything when he was wrongly accused of being a war criminal at the beginning of WWII, according to Will Fujioka’s biography.
“In 1942, not a lot of people complained and stood up for the Japanese community,” Fujioka said. “They were afraid. There was all this fear-mongering, saying, ‘These people, they’re enemies. They’re going to create espionage and sabotage. … and yet there was no record of it.”
Growing up, Fujioka recalls being called a “Jap,” at least five or 10 times a day. “You ‘Japs’ killed my brother, my uncle,” he recalls hearing. “I fought several times a week,” he said.
It took some time, but Fujioka said he made friends who “would stand with me.” In one instance, he remembers telling a friend that five guys wanted to “jump me.”
“He goes, ‘Let’s go.’ We both got the crap kicked out of us, but he didn’t back away. He’s a Latino guy. He didn’t back away because we’re brothers,” Fujioka recalled.
To Fujioka, this story serves as an example of solidarity at a time when “racism has gained greater acceptance.”
Boyle Heights as a model
As a sign of hope, he points to his time in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood with a rich history of Jewish, Mexican and Japanese immigrant life.
“I wish the world was like Boyle Heights, because in Boyle Heights there were Latinos, Italians, Jews, Russians who fled communist Russia, Japanese, Chinese, African Americans, and we didn’t really care who was what,” he said. “We ate in each other’s homes. We played on the streets. It was whether or not you were a good person.”
“Hopefully, more people will stand up. It can’t just be the Latino community. It can’t just be us. There’s strength in numbers,” Fujioka said.