Jeg er en veteran fra stjerneskibet Enterprise. Jeg svævede gennem galaksen, styrede et umådeligt stjerneskib med et mandskab sammensat af folk fra hele denne verden Folk af forskellige racer, forskellige kulturer, af forskellige herkomster. Alle arbejdede sammen. Vores mission var at udforske nye ukendte verdener, at søge nye liv og nye civilisationer, at modigt bevæge sig hen, hvor ingen før havde været.
I'm a veteran of the starship Enterprise. I soared through the galaxy driving a huge starship with a crew made up of people from all over this world, many different races, many different cultures, many different heritages, all working together, and our mission was to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Well — (Applause) —
Jeg er barnebarnet af japanske immigranter, som rejste til Amerika. Modigt rejste de til en ny ukendt verden for at søge nye muligheder. Min mor blev født i Sacramento, Californien. Min far var fra San Fransisco. De mødtes og blev gift i Los Angeles, hvor jeg blev født. Jeg var fire år gammel,
I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world, seeking new opportunities. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles, and I was born there. I was four years old
da Pearl Habor, den 7. december 1941, blev bombarderet af Japan. På en nat blev verdenen kastet ind i en verdenskrig. Amerika blev pludselig grebet af hysteri. Japan-amerikanere, amerikanske borgere med japansk baggrund, blev set på med mistro, frygt og decideret had af den simple grund, at vi tilfældigvis lignede de folk, som bombarderede Pearl Habor. Og hysteriet blev større og større indtil februar 1942, hvor den amerikanske præsident, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, beordrede, at alle japan-amerikanere på den amerikanske vestkyst uden videre skulle samles uden tiltale, uden retslig behandling og uden rettergang. Retfærdig rettergang er en bærende søjle i vores retssystem. Men det hele forsvandt. Vi blev samlet og fængslet i fængselslejre , indhegnet med pigtråd i nogle af de mest afsides steder i USA: den glohede ørken i Arizona, de trykkende sumpområder i Arkansas, ødemarkerne i Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado og to af de mest øde steder i Californien. Den 20. april fejrede jeg min 5-års fødselsdag,
when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by Japan, and overnight, the world was plunged into a world war. America suddenly was swept up by hysteria. Japanese-Americans, American citizens of Japanese ancestry, were looked on with suspicion and fear and with outright hatred simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. And the hysteria grew and grew until in February 1942, the president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordered all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of America to be summarily rounded up with no charges, with no trial, with no due process. Due process, this is a core pillar of our justice system. That all disappeared. We were to be rounded up and imprisoned in 10 barbed-wire prison camps in some of the most desolate places in America: the blistering hot desert of Arizona, the sultry swamps of Arkansas, the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and two of the most desolate places in California. On April 20th, I celebrated my fifth birthday,
og blot et par uger efter min fødselsdag hentede mine forældre min lillebror, min lillesøster og mig en tidlig morgen, og de klædte os hurtigt på. Min bror og jeg var i stuen og kiggede ud af vinduet, og vi så to soldater marchere ind i vores indkørsel. De havde bajonetter på deres rifler. De trampede op på verandaen og hamrede på døren. Min far åbnede, og soldaterne beordrede os ud af vores hjem Min far gav min bror og mig lidt bagage at bære, og vi gik ud og stod i indkørslen og ventede på, at vores mor kom ud, og da hun endelig kom ud havde hun i den ene arm vores lillesøster og i den anden, havde hun en stor køjesæk. Tårer strømmede ned af begge hendes kinder. Jeg vil aldrig glemme det syn. Det er brændt ind i min hukommelse. Vi blev taget fra vores hjem
and just a few weeks after my birthday, my parents got my younger brother, my baby sister and me up very early one morning, and they dressed us hurriedly. My brother and I were in the living room looking out the front window, and we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway. They carried bayonets on their rifles. They stomped up the front porch and banged on the door. My father answered it, and the soldiers ordered us out of our home. My father gave my brother and me small luggages to carry, and we walked out and stood on the driveway waiting for our mother to come out, and when my mother finally came out, she had our baby sister in one arm, a huge duffel bag in the other, and tears were streaming down both her cheeks. I will never be able to forget that scene. It is burned into my memory. We were taken from our home
og læsset ind i togvogne med andre japansk-amerikanske familier. Der var vagter i begge ender af hver togvogn som var vi kriminelle. Vi blev ført tværs over landet, vuggende i toget i 4 dage og 3 nætter, indtil vi ankom til Arkansas sumpområder. Jeg husker stadig pigtråds-hegnet, der indespærrede mig. Jeg husker det store vagttårn med maskinpistoler, der pegede imod os. Jeg husker søgelyset, der fulgte mig, når jeg om natten løb fra min barak til latrinen. Men det 5-år gamle jeg syntes nu, at det var meget rart, at de lyste vejen for mig, når jeg skulle tisse. Jeg var et barn, for ung til at forstå grunden til min tilværelse. Børn er fantastisk gode til at tilpasse sig.
and loaded on to train cars with other Japanese-American families. There were guards stationed at both ends of each car, as if we were criminals. We were taken two thirds of the way across the country, rocking on that train for four days and three nights, to the swamps of Arkansas. I still remember the barbed wire fence that confined me. I remember the tall sentry tower with the machine guns pointed at us. I remember the searchlight that followed me when I made the night runs from my barrack to the latrine. But to five-year-old me, I thought it was kind of nice that they'd lit the way for me to pee. I was a child, too young to understand the circumstances of my being there. Children are amazingly adaptable.
Hvad der ville have været grotesk og unormalt blev min hverdag som fange i en fængselslejr. Det blev normalt at stå i kø tre gange om dagen for at kunne spise elendig mad i en larmende spisesal. Det blev normalt at følge med min far, så vi kunne bade i et fællesbad med alle andre. At være i et fængsel, et fængsel omhegnet af pigtråd, blev min hverdag. Da krigen sluttede, blev vi løsladt, og vi fik en enkeltbillet, der førte til hvor som helst i USA. Mine forældre besluttede sig for at tage tilbage til Los Angeles, men i Los Angeles var vi ikke længere velkommen. Vi havde ikke en krone på lommen. Alt var blevet taget fra os, og fjendtligheden var intens. Vores første hjem var i et slumkvarter i den fattigste del af byen. Vi var omringet af menneskevrag, drankere og galninge. Stanken af urin hærgede i både gader og stræder og entreen. Det var en forfærdelig oplevelse, og for os børn var det skræmmende. Jeg husker en gang, hvor en dranker kom vaklende hen ad gaden og faldt lige for øjnene af os, og kastede op. Min lille søster sagde: "Mor, lad os tage hjem", for det at være indespærret af pigtråd, var for os hjem Mine forældre arbejdede hårdt
What would be grotesquely abnormal became my normality in the prisoner of war camps. It became routine for me to line up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. It became normal for me to go with my father to bathe in a mass shower. Being in a prison, a barbed-wire prison camp, became my normality. When the war ended, we were released, and given a one-way ticket to anywhere in the United States. My parents decided to go back home to Los Angeles, but Los Angeles was not a welcoming place. We were penniless. Everything had been taken from us, and the hostility was intense. Our first home was on Skid Row in the lowest part of our city, living with derelicts, drunkards and crazy people, the stench of urine all over, on the street, in the alley, in the hallway. It was a horrible experience, and for us kids, it was terrorizing. I remember once a drunkard came staggering down, fell down right in front of us, and threw up. My baby sister said, "Mama, let's go back home," because behind barbed wires was for us home. My parents worked hard
for at komme på rette spor. Vi havde mistet alt. De var midt i deres liv og skulle til at starte forfra. De sled dem selv halvt ihjel og til sidst, lykkedes det dem at få råd til et tre-værelses hjem i et ordentligt nabolag. Jeg blev teenager, og jeg blev nysgerrig omkring min barndom i fangenskab. Jeg havde læst samfundsbøger om idealerne i det amerikanske demokrati. Alle mennesker er skabt lige, vi har en umistelig ret til liv, frihed og stræben efter lykke, og jeg kunne ikke få de idealer til at stemme overens med min barndom i fangenskab. Jeg læste historiebøger, men kunne intet finde om det. Så efter aftensmaden førte jeg lange og sommetider ophedede samtaler med min far, Vi førte mange af sådanne samtaler, og det jeg fik ud af dem var min fars visdom Han var den, som led mest under forholdene i fangenskab, men alligevel forstod han det amerikanske demokrati. Han fortalte mig, at vores demokrati, er folkets demokrati. Det kan være lige så storslået som folket kan være, men det kan også være lige så fejlfuldt som mennesker er. Han fortalte mig at amerikansk demokrati er afhængig af gode mennesker, som værdsætter idealerne i vores system og aktivt deltager i processen om at få vores demokrati til at fungere. Han tog mig med til hoved- kvarteret for en kampagne — guvernøren for Illinois stillede op til præsidentvalget — og introducerede mig for den amerikanske valgpolitik. Han fortalte mig også om unge japan-amerikanere under 2. verdenskrig. Da Pearl Harbor blev bombarderet,
to get back on their feet. We had lost everything. They were at the middle of their lives and starting all over. They worked their fingers to the bone, and ultimately they were able to get the capital together to buy a three-bedroom home in a nice neighborhood. And I was a teenager, and I became very curious about my childhood imprisonment. I had read civics books that told me about the ideals of American democracy. All men are created equal, we have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I couldn't quite make that fit with what I knew to be my childhood imprisonment. I read history books, and I couldn't find anything about it. And so I engaged my father after dinner in long, sometimes heated conversations. We had many, many conversations like that, and what I got from them was my father's wisdom. He was the one that suffered the most under those conditions of imprisonment, and yet he understood American democracy. He told me that our democracy is a people's democracy, and it can be as great as the people can be, but it is also as fallible as people are. He told me that American democracy is vitally dependent on good people who cherish the ideals of our system and actively engage in the process of making our democracy work. And he took me to a campaign headquarters — the governor of Illinois was running for the presidency — and introduced me to American electoral politics. And he also told me about young Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. When Pearl Harbor was bombed,
skyndte unge japan-amerikanere sig, ligesom andre unge amerikanere, at melde sig som frivillige i hæren for at kæmpe for vores land. Den patriotiske handling blev besvaret med et slag i ansigtet. Vi blev nægtet at tjene i hæren og blev kategoriseret som "ikke-fremmede fjender". Det er oprørende at blive kaldt en fjende, når du frivilligt melder dig for at kæmpe for dit land, men det var sammensat med ordene "ikke-fremmed", som betyder "statsborger". De tog ordet "statsborger" fra os, og fængslede dem i et helt år. Og så indså regeringen,
young Japanese-Americans, like all young Americans, rushed to their draft board to volunteer to fight for our country. That act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. We were denied service, and categorized as enemy non-alien. It was outrageous to be called an enemy when you're volunteering to fight for your country, but that was compounded with the word "non-alien," which is a word that means "citizen" in the negative. They even took the word "citizen" away from us, and imprisoned them for a whole year. And then the government realized
at der i krigstiden var mangel på arbejdskraft, og lige så pludseligt som de havde samlet os, lige så pludseligt åbnede hæren for op for tilmeldinger af japan-amerikanere. Det var fuldstændigt irrationelt, men det mest fantastiske og det mest forbløffende var, at tusindvis af unge japansk-amerikanske mænd og kvinder trådte ud af pigtrådshegnene, iførte sig samme uniform, som vores vagter og efterlod deres familier i fangenskab for at kæmpe for dette land. De sagde, at de ville kæmpe,
that there's a wartime manpower shortage, and as suddenly as they'd rounded us up, they opened up the military for service by young Japanese-Americans. It was totally irrational, but the amazing thing, the astounding thing, is that thousands of young Japanese-American men and women again went from behind those barbed-wire fences, put on the same uniform as that of our guards, leaving their families in imprisonment, to fight for this country. They said that they were going to fight
ikke kun for at få deres familier ud af pigtrådshegnene, men fordi de værdsatte det selvsamme ideal som vores regering står for, burde stå for, og det var ved at blive afskaffet af det, som var blevet gjort. Alle mennesker er skabt lige.
not only to get their families out from behind those barbed-wire fences, but because they cherished the very ideal of what our government stands for, should stand for, and that was being abrogated by what was being done. All men are created equal.
Og de gik i krig for at kæmpe for dette land. De blev placeret i en særskilt enhed kun for japan-amerikanere og derefter sendt afsted til krigsmarkerne i Europa, og de kastede dem selv ind i krigen. De kæmpede med fantastisk, utrolig mod og tapperhed. De blev sendt ud på de mest farlige missioner og i krigen pådrog de sig den højeste dødsrate blandt alle enheder. Der er en kamp, som illustrerer dette.
And they went to fight for this country. They were put into a segregated all Japanese-American unit and sent to the battlefields of Europe, and they threw themselves into it. They fought with amazing, incredible courage and valor. They were sent out on the most dangerous missions and they sustained the highest combat casualty rate of any unit proportionally. There is one battle that illustrates that.
Det var kampen om den gotiske linje. Tyskerne havde rodfæstet sig i denne bjergskråning, en bjergskråning med masser af sten, i utilgængelige huler, og tre allierede bataljoner havde hamret løs på den i 6 måneder og de var i dødvande. Enhed 442 blev tilkaldt for at deltage i kampen, men mændene i enhed 442 fandt på en unik, men farlig ide: Bagsiden af bjerget var intet andet end en klippesten. Tyskerne troede, at et angreb fra bagsiden ville være umuligt. Mændene i enhed 442 besluttede sig for at gøre det umulige. En mørk og måneløs nat begyndte de at bestige klippevæggen, med et fald på mere end 304 meter, i fuld krigsudstyr. Hele natten klatrede de op ad klippen. I mørket mistede nogle deres håndfæste eller deres fodfæste og de faldt i døden i bjergkløften forneden. De faldt alle i stilhed. Ikke en eneste skreg, for ikke at afsløre deres position. Mændene klatrede i 8 timer og dem, som nåede toppen blev der indtil morgengry, og så snart lyset brød frem angreb de. Tyskerne blev overraskede og de tog klippen og brød den gotiske linje. 6-måneders dødvande blev brudt af enhed 442 på 32 minutter. Det var en fantastisk handling,
It was a battle for the Gothic Line. The Germans were embedded in this mountain hillside, rocky hillside, in impregnable caves, and three allied battalions had been pounding away at it for six months, and they were stalemated. The 442nd was called in to add to the fight, but the men of the 442nd came up with a unique but dangerous idea: The backside of the mountain was a sheer rock cliff. The Germans thought an attack from the backside would be impossible. The men of the 442nd decided to do the impossible. On a dark, moonless night, they began scaling that rock wall, a drop of more than 1,000 feet, in full combat gear. They climbed all night long on that sheer cliff. In the darkness, some lost their handhold or their footing and they fell to their deaths in the ravine below. They all fell silently. Not a single one cried out, so as not to give their position away. The men climbed for eight hours straight, and those who made it to the top stayed there until the first break of light, and as soon as light broke, they attacked. The Germans were surprised, and they took the hill and broke the Gothic Line. A six-month stalemate was broken by the 442nd in 32 minutes. It was an amazing act,
og da krigen sluttede, vendte enhed 442 hjem til USA som den enhed med flest hædersbevisninger i hele 2. verdenskrig. De blev budt velkommen på græsplænen ved Det Hvide Hus af præsident Truman, som sagde: "I kæmpede ikke kun mod fjenden, men også mod fordomme, og I vandt." De er mine helte.
and when the war ended, the 442nd returned to the United States as the most decorated unit of the entire Second World War. They were greeted back on the White House Lawn by President Truman, who said to them, "You fought not only the enemy but prejudice, and you won." They are my heroes.
De klyngede sig til deres tro på dette lands skinnende idealer, og de beviste, at det at være amerikaner ikke kun er for nogle mennesker, at det at være amerikaner ikke defineres ud fra race. De udvidede forståelsen af det at være amerikaner ved at inkludere japan-amerikanere som var frygtet, mistænkt og hadet. De skabte forandring, og de efterlod mig en arv. De er mine helte, og min far er min helt, som forstod demokrati og vejledte mig igennem det. De gav mig en arv, og med den arv følger der et ansvar, og jeg er dedikeret til at gøre mit land til et endnu bedre Amerika, til at gøre vores regering til et mere ægte demokrati og på grund af de helte jeg har, og de anstrengelser vi har været igennem, kan jeg stå her foran jer som en homoseksuel japan-amerikaner. Men mere end det, jeg er en stolt amerikaner. Mange tak.
They clung to their belief in the shining ideals of this country, and they proved that being an American is not just for some people, that race is not how we define being an American. They expanded what it means to be an American, including Japanese-Americans that were feared and suspected and hated. They were change agents, and they left for me a legacy. They are my heroes and my father is my hero, who understood democracy and guided me through it. They gave me a legacy, and with that legacy comes a responsibility, and I am dedicated to making my country an even better America, to making our government an even truer democracy, and because of the heroes that I have and the struggles that we've gone through, I can stand before you as a gay Japanese-American, but even more than that, I am a proud American. Thank you very much.