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 Enterprajz. Jezdio sam kroz galaksiju na ogromnoj letelici sa ljudima iz celog sveta, različitih rasa, različitih kultura, različitog porekla, svi smo zajedno radili i naša misija je bila da istražimo čudnovate nove svetove, da pronađemo novi život i nove civilizacije, da hrabro idemo tamo gde niko do tada 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.
Pa - (Aplauz) - Ja sam unuk imigranata iz Japana koji su došli u Ameriku, hrabro koračajući u novi svet, tražeći nove prilike. Moja majka je rođena u Sakramentu, u Kaliforniji. Moj otac je iz San Franciska. Sreli su se i uzeli u Los Anđelesu, i ja sam se tamo i rodio.
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 bombardovao Perl Harbor 7. debembra 1941, i svet se preko noći upustio u svetski rat. Ameriku je odjednom obuzela histerija. Japanski Amerikanci, američki građani japanskog porekla, gledani su sa sumnjom i strahom i čistom mržnjom jednostavno jer smo izgledali kao ljudi koji su bombardovali Perl Harbor. Histerija je rasla i rasla sve dok u februaru 1942. predsednik Sjedinjenih Država, Frenklin Delano Ruzvelt, nije naredio svim Amerikancima japanskog porekla na američkoj zapadnoj obali da se na brzinu postroje bez optužbi, bez suđenja, bez procesuiranja. Procesuiranje je sam stub našeg pravnog sistema. To je sve nestalo. Trebalo je da se postrojimo i da nas zatvore u 10 zatvorskih kampova sa bodljikavom žicom u nekim od najudaljenijih mesta u Americi: pakleno vrućoj pustinji Arizone, po sparnim močvarama Arkanzasa, pustarama u Vajomingu, Ajdahu, Juti, Koloradu i dva najudaljenija mesta 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.
Slavio sam svoj peti rođendan 20. aprila, i samo nekoliko nedelja nakon toga, moji roditelji su pokupili mog mlađeg brata, moju mlađu sestru i mene veoma rano jednog jutra i na brzinu su nas obukli. Brat i ja smo bili u dnevnoj sobi i gledali smo kroz prozor i videli smo dva vojnika kako prilaze kući. Na puškama su nosili bajonete. Gazili su do prednjeg trema i lupali su po vratima. Moj otac je otvorio i vojnici su nam naredili da izađemo iz doma. Moj otac je mom bratu i meni dao da nosimo male komade prtljaga, i izašli smo i stajali na prilazu čekajući da izađe majka, i kada je ona konačno izašla, u jednoj ruci je držala našu malu sestru, u drugoj ogroman ranac, a niz oba obraza su joj se slivale suze. Nikad neću moći da zaboravim taj prizor. Urezan mi je u sećanje.
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.
Odvedeni smo iz našeg doma i utrpani na vagone sa drugim porodicama Amerikanaca japanskog porekla. Na oba kraja svakog vagona su bili postavljeni sražari, kao da smo bili kriminalci. Odveli su nas preko dve trećine zemlje, klackali smo se u tom vozu četiri dana i tri noći, do močvara u Arkanzasu. Još uvek se sećam ograde sa bodljikavom žicom koja me je zadržavala. Sećam se visoke stražarske kule sa mitraljezima koji su bili upereni ka nama. Sećam se svetla za pretragu koje me je pratilo kada sam noću išao od moje barake do toaleta. Ali za mene koji sam tada imao pet godina, mislio sam je bilo lepo što su mi osvetlili put da mogu da piškim. Bio sam dete, premlad da razumem okolnosti toga što sam bio tamo.
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.
Deca se neverovatno lako prilagođavaju. Ono što bi bilo groteskno nenormalno postalo je moja normalnost kao zatvorenika ratnog logora. Za mene je postala rutina da se postrojim triput dnevno da jedem očajnu hranu u bučnoj hali. Za mene je postalo normalno da idem sa mojim ocem da se tuširam u grupnom kupatilu. Postalo mi je normalno da budem u zatvoru, u logoru okruženom bodljikavom žicom.
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 se rat završio, pustili su nas i dali nam kartu u jednom pravcu za bilo gde u Sjedinjenim Državama. Moji roditelji su odlučili da se vrate kući u Los Anđeles, ali to više nije bilo mesto gde smo bili dobrodošli. Bili smo bez dinara. Oduzeli su nam sve, i netrpeljivost je bila žestoka. Naš prvi dom je bio Skid Rou u najnižem delu grada, i živeli smo sa beskućnicima, pijanicama i ludim ljudima, svuda je bio smrad mokraće, na ulici, u uličicama, u hodniku. Bilo je to užasno iskustvo, i za nas decu je bilo užasavajuće. Sećam se da se jednom pijan čovek doteturao do nas i pao tačno pred nama i povratio. Moja mala sestra je rekla: "Mama, hajdemo nazad kući," jer je boljikava žica za nas bila 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 da se vrate na staro. Izgubili smo sve. Bili su na sredini svojih života i kretali su ispočetka. Radii su bez prekida i konačno su mogli da skupe sredstva da kupe trosobnu kuću u finom komšiluku. Ja sam bio tinejdžer i veoma me je zanimao moj zatvorski boravak u detinjstvu. Čitao sam knjige o građanskim pravima koje su mi govorile o idealima američke demokratije. Svi ljudi su jednaki, imamo neotuđivo pravo na život, slobodu i traženje sreće, i nisam mogao da usaglasim to sa onim za šta sam znao da je bio moj boravak u zatvoru u detinjstvu. Čitao sam knjige iz istorije i nisam mogao da nađem ništa o tome. Tako sam s ocem posle večere učestvovao u dugim, ponekad žustrim raspravama. Imali smo mnogo takvih razgovora i iz njih sam izvukao mudrost mog oca. On je najviše patio u tim zatvorskim uslovima, a ipak je razumeo američku demokratiju. Rekao mi je da je naša demokratija demokratija naroda, i da može da bude sjajna kao i narod, ali i pogrešiva kao i narod. Rekao mi je da američka demokratija suštinski zavisi od dobrih ljudi koji neguju ideale našeg sistema i koji su aktivno uključeni u procesu funkcionisanja naše demokratije. Odveo me je do štaba za kampanju - guverner Ilinoja se kandidovao za predsednika - i upoznao me je s američkom izbornom politikom. Takođe mi je pričao o mladim Amerikancima japanskog porekla tokom Drugog svetskog 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 bombardovan Perl Harbor, mladi Amerikanci japanskog porekla, poput svih mladih Amerikanaca, potrčali su da se prijave u vojsku i volontiraju da se bore za svoju zemlju. Na taj čin patriotizma su im odgovorili šamarom u lice. Nisu nam dali da služimo i svrstali su nas kao domaće neprijatelje. Bilo je nečuveno da vas nazovu neprijateljem kada volontirate da se borite za svoju zemlju, ali to je bilo u složenici sa rečju "domaći", što je pogrdna reč za "građanin". Oduzeli su nam čak i reč "građanin" i zatvorili nas na 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.
A onda je Vlada shvatila da postoji manjak ljudi tokom rata i brzinom kojom su nas postrojili, otvorili su vojsku za službu mladim Amerikancima japanskog porekla. Bilo je potpuno nelogično, ali desila se neverovatna, zapanjujuća stvar - hiljade mladih Amerikanaca i Amerikanki japanskog porekla je krenulo iza tih ograda sa bodljikavom žicom, obuklo istu uniformu kao onu koju su nosili stražari, ostavili su porodice u zatočeništvu da bi se borili za ovu 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 da izvuku svoje porodice van tih ograda s bodljikavom žicom, već i zato što su obožavali sam ideal onoga što zastupa naša Vlada, što bi trebalo da zastupa, i sve to je ukinuto onim što se radilo.
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. I svi su otišli da se bore za ovu zemlju. Stavili su ih u odvojenu jedinicu sa svim Amerikancima japanskog porekla i poslali su ih na ratišta u Evropu, a oni su dali sve od sebe. Borili su se neverovatnom, zapanjujućom hrabrošću i junaštvom. Slali su ih na najopasnije zadatke i istrpeli su najveće žrtve proporcionalno od svih jedinica.
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 jedna bitka koja to ilustruje. To je bila bitka za Gotsku liniju. Nemci su bili načičkani na obronku planine, sa dosta stena, u nesavladivim pećinama i tri saveznička bataljona su tukla tu planinu šest meseci i bili su u pat poziciji. 442. jedinica je pozvana da se pridruži borbi ali su ljudi iz te jedinice smislili jedinstvenu ali opasnu ideju. Zadnji deo planine sačinjavale su samo stenovite litice. Nemci su mislili da bi napad iz pozadine bio nemoguć. Vojnici iz 442. jedinice odlučili su da urade nemoguće. U tamnoj noći bez meseca počeli su da se penju uz taj stenoviti zid visok više od 300 metara, pod punom ratnom opremom. Penjali su se celu noć po čistoj litici. U tami, neki su izgubili svoj oslonac i pali su u sopstvenu smrt u uvalu pod sobom. Svi su pali tiho. Niko nije uzviknuo, kako ne bi odali svoju poziciju. Peli su se celih osam sati, a oni koji su došli do vrha ostali su tamo do prvih zraka sunca, i čim se svetlost probila, napali su. Nemci su bili iznenađeni i oni su zauzeli brdo i razbili Gotsku liniju. Mirovanje od šest meseci je razbila 442. jedinica za 32 minuta.
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 bio neverovatan čin, i kad se rat završio, 442. jedinica se vratila u SAD kao jedinica sa najviše odličja u celom Drugom svetskom ratu. Na travnjaku Bele kuće pozdravio ih je predsednik Truman, koji im je rekao: "Borili ste se ne samo protiv neprijatelja već i predrasuda, i pobedili 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 svoje vere u sjajne ideale ove zemlje i dokazali su da biti Amerikanac nije samo za neke ljude, da rasa nije način definisanja toga što smo Amerikanci. Proširili su to šta znači biti Amerikanac i uključili Amerikance japanskog porekla kojih su se plašili, na koje su sumnjali i koje su mrzeli. Oni su bili agenti promene, i meni su ostavili nasleđe. Oni su moji heroji i moj otac je moj heroj, koji je razumeo demokratiju i vodio me kroz nju. Dali su mi nasleđe, sa kojim dolazi odgovornost i posvećen sam tome da od svoje zemlje napravim još bolju Ameriku, da od naše Vlade napravim još bolju demokratiju, i zbog heroja koje imam i patnji kroz koje sam prošao, mogu da stanem pred vas kao gej Amerikanac japanskog porekla, ali i više od toga, ja sam ponosni Amerikanac.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam mnogo.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)