Dear friends,

As a Japanese-American, the events of September 11th generate distinct and perhaps  unique resonances. The many analogies to Pearl Harbor evoke not only the universal American shock, horror and outrage at that surprise military attack, but summon other associations for me as well. Pearl Harbor, the first battle of American involvement in World War II, was also the trigger for a definitive and culminating expression of decades of anti-Japanese sentiment and anti-Asian racism in the US.  With the signing of Executive Order 9066, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, approximately 120,000 Japanese American residents, including U.S. citizens, in an unprecedented abrogation of their civil rights, were ordered to leave their homes and incarcerated in the 'badlands', a mandatory 'relocation' from the West Coast.

Current reports of anti-Arab sentiment, verbal attacks and vandalism of Muslim mosques cannot but recall this Japanese American history. There are clear voices of reason among local and federal government leaders, including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President Bush who have warned against the danger of 'hate crimes'. Yet, the inchoate grief, confusion, anxiety, and the shockwaves of loss and a sorrow of unimaginable

multiplication can find easy expression in an indiscriminate scapegoating.

In such scapegoating and 'otherization', we run a great risk of a cataclysmic dehumanization of those who look like our assailants and a retaliation that draws in other innocent civilians.  In the words of the Very Reverend Nathan Baxter, Dean of the National Cathedral, at Friday's national day of prayer and remembrance:  'In fighting evil, let us not become the evil we deplore'.

A final thought - the New York Times acknowledged newscaster Tom Brokaw's comparison of the scene of the devastated World Trade Center to a 'post-nuclear winter' as the definitively apt description. But no one makes explicit the obvious reference, no one speaks the names - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Approximately 140,000 people were killed as a result of this 'last battle of WWII', the ultimate attack on a civilian population.  The circumstances were vastly different but that bombing, like the terrorist conflagration Americans experienced on September 11th, represented the terrible crossing of a new boundary, destruction at previously unheard of and unthinkable proportions.  I think one reason we find it hard to name 'Hiroshima' is that in so doing we must recognize all the ambiguity, complexity and human cost of such victories, such 'triumphs' of American

'will'.

The catastrophic assault on American citizens in New York City (my hometown) was also the occasion for countless acts of heroism, cooperation, and selfless concern for strangers.  These acts of instant regard and connectedness stand in utter and bold contradiction to the pressure toward otherization and de-humanization that hangs in the air like the gray plume of ash, soot, asbestos and bone above New York.  A pending question: How do we, as a society and nation-state, appraise the dangers of dehumanization against these acts of connection; what standing and further expression do

we give these extraordinary and courageous acts of compassion and empathy by ordinary people?

With love, Norma Akamatsu

Norma Akamatsu is Japanese-American family therapist currently living in MA.