Chizu Omori, now 94 years old, was born in Oxnard, California to an Issei father and Kibei-Nisei mother and grew up as a farm girl. Starting when she was only 12 years old, Omori’s family spent three-and-a-half years as inmates in the Poston War Relocation Center concentration camp in Arizona.
I had the opportunity to connect with Omori to learn about her family’s history, the intergenerational impact the World War II incarceration had on Japanese Americans, and her impressions of the current sociopolitical moment in terms of what is at stake for democracy.
Omori is organizing an upcoming summer 2025 conference titled “Changing Perspectives on Japanese American Incarceration.” The event will occur from June 21 to June 22, 2025, in Oakland, California, at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. To learn more about the conference and register, visit https://www.jampilgrimages.org/changing-perspectives.
The conference is especially timely given the current sociopolitical environment. “American society still doesn’t know about the incarceration; how it set up a precedent in our history,” Omori said. “Look at how the Trump administration recently invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting the Venezuelan men without cause. The government used this same act after the Pearl Harbor attack to detain Issei men. There are parallels to what happened back then to today.”
Among other topics, her upcoming conference will address protest and refusal among Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, a controversial topic often excluded from conversations about Japanese American history, including within the community itself.
“The conventional story of the incarceration is one of obedience,” Omori said. “But Japanese Americans have a long history of opposition, rebellion, and protest that we don’t usually hear about. For example, in the camp in Topaz, Utah, 1,114 Issei women, which was probably about every mother, signed a petition opposing the draft of Nisei young men. Similar petitions happened at other camps. These got up to President Roosevelt and others in the government.”
Omori is also a critically acclaimed activist, filmmaker, and journalist. Among her many accomplishments, she and her younger sister, Emiko Omori, co-produced an award-winning documentary titled Rabbit in the Moon (1999). The film provides both firsthand accounts and other critical commentary about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Rabbit received the 1999 National Emmy for Outstanding Historical Programming, along with other national awards.
Omori is also a longtime activist and leader. She was a key figure during the Japanese American Redress Movement, which eventually led to the passage of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. She has also been active in other social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement, and protested the Vietnam War. More recently, she has actively supported the Black Lives Matter movement and protested the US government’s mistreatment of im/migrant families and individuals.
Below is a Q&A about Omori’s upcoming conference, its relevance in 2025, and her insights about what we as Americans need to do to preserve democracy by drawing on lessons from the past.
Rachel Endo: What circumstances inspired you to coordinate this upcoming conference?
Chizu Omori: I am getting up there in years (94-years old), and an opportunity presented itself. The Takahashi Foundation of San Francisco was looking for grant proposals.
I felt that if I passed this up, I may regret it later. And so many of the persons who played big roles in our history, academics like Roger Daniels, Lane Hirabayashi, Gary Okihiro, and community activists like Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig, Michi Weglyn, William Hohri, and dozens of others, have passed away, or have health issues, and it seemed a shame that we did not have community gatherings where we could listen to the stories that they could tell about their work, their aspirations, their passion for getting to the truth, their understandings of the issues. So, I thought I would like to gather those who were still available and have a community gathering to listen to them.
RE: The conference seems timely and urgent in Trump 2.0, especially on topics related to questions of citizenship, loyalty oaths, the unconstitutional ways the US government is treating many groups of people today, and much more. What key learnings would you like conference attendees to take away?
CO: Now, it seems more timely than ever, that what happened to Japanese Americans is very relevant in light of what is happening in Trump 2.0.
Another factor is that there still is a lot of ignorance even within the Japanese American community about the details of what happened to us. It is not taught in schools, and not many colleges have classes in Asian American history, so not many people know much about it. And often, what people do know is a distorted, conventional picture in which we were resilient, and came out of it as the model minority.
I would like people to understand that the true history is much worse than generally known, and that we were rendered somewhat silent because of certain circumstances. The community as a whole had been dealt such a traumatic blow, that it has taken years to come to grips with the fall out.
RE: Any thoughts of what activism/organizing might look like in the era of Trump 2.0?
CO: We will have a contingent of younger people who will speak about the work that they are doing, and how they are thinking of the many issues, and what in the way of activism they are picking up. What we are facing with Trump 2.0 is a turn to a white male supremacy situation, and as people of color, we need to organize, form coalitions, understand that we have to fight for our rights if we want to maintain democracy.
There are small things anyone can do: postcard writing; showing up to a rally or protest; writing to public officials; and speaking up when we see injustice happening. We need to keep fighting the good fight.
Rachel Endo is an award-winning educator, leader, and scholar who is currently based in the Tacoma area. She was born and raised in Nebraska and hails from a multi-generational Nikkei family. A first-generation college student, she graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with honors, where she also earned her MA in Education and MPA in Public Management . She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. To learn more, including how to contact her directly, visit her website at: www.rachelendo.com
