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.
Veteran sam svemirskog broda Enterprise. Letio sam kroz galaksiju vozeći ogromni svemirski brod s posadom sastavljenom od ljudi iz svih krajeva svijeta, mnogo različitih rasa, mnogo različitih kultura, mnogo različitih običaja, radeći svi zajedno, a naša misija je bila istraživati nepoznate svjetove, tražiti nove oblike života i nove civilizacije, hrabro ići tamo gdje još nitko nije išao.
Well — (Applause) — 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.
Dakle — (Pljesak) — Ja sam unuk japanskih imigranata koji su otišli u Ameriku, u nepoznat svijet, u potrazi za novim prilikama. Moja majka je rođena u Sacramentu, u Kaliforniji. Moj otac je iz San Francisca. Upoznali su se i vjenčali u Los Angelesu, gdje sam ja rođen.
I was four years old 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.
Imao sam četiri godine kada je Japan bombardirao Pearl Harbor 7. prosinca 1941. godine, i preko noći svijet je utonuo u svjetski rat. U Americi je zavladala histerija. Japanski Amerikanci, američki građani japanskog podrijetla, gledani su sa sumnjom, strahom i s otvorenom mržnjom samo zbog toga jer smo izgledali kao ljudi koji su bombardirali Pearl Harbor. Histerija je rasta i rasla sve dok u veljači 1942., američki predsjednik, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, nije naredio da se svi Amerikanci japanskog podrijetla na američkoj Zapadnoj obali, po kratkom postupku privedu bez optužbi, bez suđenja i bez pravičnog postupka. Pravični postupak, ovo je stup našeg pravosudnog sustava. Toga više nije bilo. Bilo smo skupljeni i zatočeni u 10 zatvoreničkih logora okruženih bodljikavom žicom u najizoliranijim mjestima u Americi: užasno vruća pustinja u Arizoni, sparne močvare Arkansasa, pustopoljine Wyominga, Idaha, Utaha, Colorada i dva najnapuštenija mjesta u Kaliforniji.
On April 20th, I celebrated my fifth birthday, 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.
20. travnja, proslavio sam peti rođendan, i samo nekoliko tjedana nakon mog rođendana, moji roditelji su probudili mog mlađeg brata, malu sestricu i mene ranije jednog jutra i žurno su nas počeli oblačiti. Brat i ja smo bili u dnevnoj sobi, gledali smo kroz prozor i vidjeli dva vojnika kako marširaju na našem kolnom prilazu. Nosili su bajonete na puškama. Prišli su trijemu i zalupali na vrata. Otac je otvorio, a vojnici su nam naredili da napustimo kuću. Otac je bratu i meni dao nositi male kufere, izašli smo van i stali na prilaz čekajući da izađe i naša majka, a kada je moja majka napokon izašla, u jednoj je ruci držala moju sestricu, a u drugoj veliku torbu, i suze su joj tekle niz obraze. Nikada neću zaboraviti taj prizor. Urezao mi se u sjećanje.
We were taken from our home 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.
Odveli su nas iz našeg doma i ukrcali na vagone u kojima su bile druge japansko-američke obitelji. Na oba kraja vagona stajali su stražari, kao dao smo kriminalci. Prešli smo dvije trećine zemlje, ljuljajući se na tom vlaku četiri dana i tri noći, sve do močvara Arkansasa. Još se sjećam ograde od bodljikave žice gdje su me zatvorili. Sjećam se visoke promatračnice sa strojnicama uperenim u nas. Sjećam se reflektora koji me je pratio kada sam noću trčao od barake do zahoda. A ja, kao petogodišnjak, mislio sam da je baš lijepo što mi osvjetljavaju put dok idem piškiti. Bio sam dijete, premlad da bih razumio okolnosti zbog kojih sam se tamo našao.
Children are amazingly adaptable. 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.
Djeca su nevjerojatno prilagodljiva. Ono što bi bilo groteskno nenormalno postalo mi je normalno u logorima za ratne zarobljenike. Postala mi je rutina stajati u redu tri puta dnevno kako bih jeo lošu hranu u bučnoj menzi. Postalo mi je normalno ići s ocem kako bih se oprao u zajedničkom tušu. Biti u zatvoru, u zatvoreničkom logoru okruženom bodljikavom žicom, postala je moja svakodnevica.
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.
Kada je rat završio, bili smo oslobođeni i dobili smo jednosmjernu kartu za bilo koje mjesto u SAD-u. Moji roditelji su se odlučili vratiti kući u Los Angeles, ali Los Angeles nije više bio prijateljski nastrojen prema nama. Bili smo bez novca. Sve nam je bilo oduzeto, a neprijateljsko ozračje je raslo. Naš prvi dom bio je u četvrti Skid Row u najsiromašnijem dijelu grada, gdje smo živjeli sa skitnicama, alkoholičarima i luđacima, svugdje se osjetio smrad urina, na ulicama, uskim prolazima, hodnicima. To je bilo užasno iskustvo za nas djecu. Sjećam se kad nam je jednom pijanac došao teturajući, pao je točno ispred nas i povratio. Moja sestrica je rekla: "Mama, vratimo se kući," jer mjesto iza bodljikave žice za nas je bio dom.
My parents worked hard 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.
Moji roditelji su naporno radili kako bi ponovno stali na noge. Sve smo bili izgubili. Bili su na polovici svog životnog puta i morali su početi od nule. Krvavo su radili, i na kraju su uspjeli zajedno prikupiti dovoljno novca kako bi kupili kuću s tri spavaće sobe u lijepom susjedstvu. Bio sam tinejdžer, i postao sam vrlo znatiželjan u vezi svog djetinjstva provedenog u zatočeništvu. Pročitao sam knjige o građanskim pravima koje su govorile o idealima američke demokracije. Svi su ljudi stvoreni jednaki, imamo neotuđivo pravo na život, slobodu i potragu za srećom. i to se nikako nije poklapalo sa onim što sam poznavao kao djetinjstvo u zatočeništvu. Čitao sam povijesne knjige i nisam mogao naći ništa o tome. I tako sam s ocem nakon večere počeo voditi duge, ponekad i žustre rasprave. Imali smo mnogo, mnogo takvih razgovora, a ono što sam dobio iz toga bila je mudrost mog oca. On je bio taj koji je najviše patio u tim zatvorskim uvjetima, a ipak je shvaćao američku demokraciju. Rekao mi je da je naša demokracija narodna demokracija, i da može biti divna poput ljudi, ali i da baš poput ljudi može i podbaciti. Rekao je da američka demokracija nužno ovisi o dobrim ljudima koji njeguju ideale našeg sustava i aktivno sudjeluju u procesu funkcioniranja naše demokracije. Odveo me je u predizborni centar — guverner Illinoisa se kandidirao za predsjednika — i upoznao s Američkom izbornom politikom. Također mi je pričao o mladim Amerikancima japanskog podrijetla u razdoblju Drugog svjetskog rata.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, 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.
Kada je bombardiran Pearl Harbor, mladi Amerikanci Japanskog podrijetla, poput svih mladih Amerikanaca, pohitali su svojim novačkim komisijama kako bi se prijavili za dobrovoljno sudjelovanje u borbi za svoju zemlju. Kao odgovor na ovaj domoljubni čin dobili smo pljusku. Odbili su nas i svrstali u kategoriju domaćih neprijatelja. Nečuveno je da vas zovu neprijateljem kada se želite dobrovoljno boriti za svoju zemlju To je bilo dopunjeno riječju "domaći," koja se odnosi na građanina, ali u negativnom smislu. Oduzeli su nam građanski status i držali nas u zatočeništvu godinu dana.
And then the government realized 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.
Nakon toga Vlada je shvatila da im nedostaje ratne snage, i jednako naglo kao što su nas i uhitili, sada su dozvolili uključivanje u vojsku i mladim Amerikancima Japanskog podrijetla. Odluka je bila potpuno neshvatljiva, ali ono što je bilo nevjerojatno i zapanjujuće je to da su tisuće mladih Amerikanaca i Amerikanki Japanskog podrijetla iza tih ograda od bodljikave žice, navukli na sebu istu onu uniformu koju su nosili stražari, ostavili svoje obitelji u zatočeništvu i krenuli u borbu za svoju zemlju.
They said that they were going to fight 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.
Rekli su da će se boriti ne samo kako bi izbavili svoje obitelji iza bodljikave žice, nego i zbog poštivanja ideala za koji se zalaže naša Vlada, ili za koji bi se trebala zalagati, a koji je bio obezvrijeđen onim što se činilo.
All men are created equal. 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.
Svi ljudi su stvoreni jednaki. Oni su se otišli boriti za ovu zemlju. Svi japansko-američki vojnici stavljeni su u posebnu jedinicu i poslani na europska bojišta i jako su se trudili. Borili su se nevjerojatno hrabro i odvažno. Bili su poslani na najopasnija mjesta i njihove jedinice pretrpjele su više gubitaka od bilo koje druge jedinice.
There is one battle that illustrates that. 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.
Postoji bitka koja to najbolje ilustrira. To je bila bitka za Gotičku liniju. Nijemci su se stacionirali na planinskom obronku, stjenovitom planinskom obronku u teško pristupačnim špiljama, a tri savezničke bojne su ih napadale šest mjeseci, i našle su se u bezizlaznom položaju. 442. pukovnija pozvana je da se priključi u borbu, ali ljudi iz pukovnije došli su na jednu opasnu ideju: Stražnja strana planine bila je stjenovita litica. Nijemci su mislili da je napad sa stražnje strane nemoguće izvesti. Ljudi iz 442. pukovnije odlučili su učiniti nemoguće. U tamnoj noći bez mjesečine, počeli su se penjati uz stjenoviti zid, na više od 300 metara dug uspon, u borbenoj opremi. Penjali su se cijelu noć po toj strmovitoj litici. U mraku, neki su izgubili svoj hvat ili svoja uporišta i pali u smrt u provaliju ispod njih. Svi su pali tiho. Nitko nije ni kriknuo, kako ne bi otkrili svoj položaj. Muškarci su se uspinjali osam sati, a oni koji su se uspjeli popeti na vrh ostali su tu sve do zore, i s prvim zrakama sunca, napali su. Nijemci su bili iznenađeni i počeli su se povlačiti, čime je Gotička linija bila slomljena. Šestomjesečna pat-pozicija je okončana od strane 442. pukovnije za 32. minute.
It was an amazing act, 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."
To je bila nevjerojatna akcija. A kada je rat završio, 442. pukovnija se vratila u SAD kao jedinica s najviše odlikovanja u Drugom svjetskom ratu. Na travnjaku Bijele kuće dočekao ih je predsjednik Truman, koji im je rekao, "Borili ste se ne samo protiv neprijatelja, nego i protiv predrasuda. I pobijedili ste."
They are my heroes. 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.
Oni su moji heroji. Držali su se svojih uvjerenja o sjajnim idealima ove zemlje, dokazali su da se Amerikancem ne mogu smatrati samo neki ljudi i da Amerikanca ne određuje rasa. Proširili su značenje te riječi, koja je sada uključivala i Amerikance Japanskog podrijetla kojih su se plašili, sumnjičili ih i mrzili. Oni su bili pokretači promjena, koji su mi ostavili jedno naslijeđe. Oni su moji heroji, i moj otac je moj heroj, koji je razumio demokraciju i vodio me kroz nju. Ostavili su mi naslijeđe, a s tim naslijeđem dolazi i odgovornost. Ja sam posvećen tome da moja Amerika bude još bolja zemlja, da naša Vlada bude istinski demokratska, i zahvaljujući mojim herojima i poteškoćama kroz koje smo prošli sada mogu stajati pred vama kao gay Amerikanac japanskog podrijetla, ali još više od toga, ja sam ponosni Amerikanac.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam puno.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)