Good Planets is up on Bev Wigney’s wonderful Burning Silo. The theme was Memory. Contributors explored memory through many different lenses. Definitely check it out.
Above is the photo I contributed. This may look familiar; it’s the lead photo for my recent post of “lost and found” photos from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from November 2005. Several people found that photo evocative. It is for me as well. Below is my explanation of how it connects to “memory” for me.
This basin is outside the entrance to the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Built from 1914-1915 and opened to the public in June 1915, it was the first Japanese garden to be created in an American public garden. This image speaks to “memory” for me in many ways. There are other times the basin has been filled with water from rain. The emptiness of the basin holds that memory for me. The leaves: the memory of the cherry trees above the basin, their flowers in Spring, how they look at other seasons, the memories of past winters like the one about to come.
There is another, darker kind of remembering which this basin, and the whole garden, holds for me. The Japanese Garden was designed by Takeo Shiota. He died in 1943 in a U.S. internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Read The Death of Takeo Shiota for my take on this.
[Updated 2007.02.23: Added link to the issue of Plants & Gardens News (PDF, requires membership login) which mentioned Shiota’s death in the U.S. internment camps.]
A video sparked a connection for me among three seemingly unrelated topics: a Japanese Garden built over 90 years ago, World War II, and the Department of Homeland Security.
This is a view from the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I took this photo last year, November 5, 2005. BBG has this to say about this garden on their Web site:
It is considered to be the masterpiece of its creator, Japanese landscape designer Takeo Shiota (1881-1943). Shiota was born in a small village about 40 miles from Tokyo, and in his youth spent years traversing Japan on foot to explore the natural landscape. In 1907 he came to America, driven by an ambition to create, in his words, “a garden more beautiful than all others in the world.” – Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Note the year of Shiota’s death, 1943. I learned recently, from a review of the book Defiant Gardens in the Fall 2006/Winter 2007 issue of BBG’s Plants & Gardens News (PDF, requires membership login), that Shiota died in a United States internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II.
It has happened here before. It can happen again. And our government has plans to do so.
The Pearl Harbor attack intensified hostility towards Japanese Americans. As wartime hysteria mounted, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 causing over 120,000 West Coast persons of Japanese ancestry (Nikkei) to leave their homes, jobs, and lives behind to move to one of ten Relocation Camps.
The largest, so far. I am painfully aware of the parallels between Pearl Harbor and September 11. As bad as the hysteria has been, it can get worse.
On January 24 of this year, the Department of Homeland Security awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) a $385M contract [my emphasis added]:
The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.
The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. – Halliburton Press Release: KBR AWARDED U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY CONTINGENCY SUPPORT PROJECT FOR EMERGENCY SUPPORT SERVICES
This has been widely reported in the press, including the New York Times. Peter Dale Scott wrote an extensive analysis for Pacific News Service.
I can add little, except to relate these current historical events to the atrocity committed against a single person over 60 years ago, and share my feelings about all of this. Takeo Shiota was responsible for one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, one which I and millions of others have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy. I will never again be able to visit that garden without wondering about him and his life, and thinking of how my government killed him. It is the least I can do.
Video: Crosby & Nash, “Immigration Man”
I haven’t thought of this song in many years, decades maybe. It was always one of my favorites, hauntingly beautiful vocals and chord progressions.
I don’t know who’s responsible for assembling the images into the video, but it’s an effective piece of work. This is what reminded me of the Halliburton contract, and led me to post this.
Additional Links:
Kenneth Helphand, author of “Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime”
