Americans All….

A plea for tolerance and 100 per cent Americanism catches our eye in the Philippines News Letter, a weekly Filipino paper published in Seattle.
It’s no ordinary plea. Bill Hosokawa, a Japanese-American and a former University journalism student, wrote it for the columns of Julius Ruiz, editor of the News Letter, and himself a former journalist at the University with Hosokawa.
Hosokawa pleads for common sense; asks Japanese and Filipinos to forget their nationalities and become Americans. It’s nice to be able to realize that here in America representatives of warring kinfolk can speak their thoughts without fear of retaliation.
We fought our war of independence for tolerance.
We are fighting for the same principles now. Let’s preserve them at home
–Bill Edmundson * * *

A war that has struck close to the hearts of all of us rages today in the Far East. It was brought on by the ruthless power-lust of a group of Nazi-minded militarists who have in their rise to dominance crushed the civil rights of their own countrymen in the same way that they are blasting the accomplishments and hopes of other peace-loving people.
This is a war that must be fought to the finish if the liberal principles we all cherish are to survive. Only a united America can accomplish this purpose.
There is no place here today for petty grievances or short-sightedness. We are, regardless of race, color or backgrounds, all Americans.
Let us speak bluntly.
In some sections of the country, California particularly, there have been senseless bloody crashes between Filipinos and Japanese. The bitterness that provoked these attacks is understandable. Sometimes it is more than a man can stand to read of brutal attack on his homeland, to realize that his loved ones are endangered, perhaps victims of an invader.
But it is only madness to seek revenge on innocent individuals many thousands of miles away from the battlefields. Such hysteria is aid indeed for the very Nazis we are fighting.
The Japanese residing in the United States had nothing whatever to say about official Japanese policy. The majority are American citizens by birth, education and preference, motivated in the defense of this country by the same patriotism that moves every loyal American. The non-citizens among them are aliens, not by choice but because of American law which denies them citizenship. Most of them have spent two-thirds of their lives here.
The Japanese in this country first came here because they wanted to better themselves, and they stayed because the loved the American way of life. This is true of most immigrant groups.
Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, even Caucasians–Americans of whatever racial extraction–must realize that we are all in the same boat now. We are fighting for the same ideals and principles, and to defend them against a common foe. Our backgrounds must be made secondary to the urgent present, and that urgency demands a bold, impregnable unity.
All of us have much to gain by victory in this war.
First, the United States will triumph.
Second, our positions on the American scene can be made more secure.
It is no secret that Filipinos as well as Japanese have had some difficult times in American economic life. Our conduct during these trying times will determine how much social advancement we will have made when the world gets back to normal.
All of us have a big stake in the future. This is the time to work with sympathy and understanding. Common sense now will pay big dividends. There is not one among us who will not become a better American by using a little more of it.
–Bill Hosokawa