Muslims Arrested in Lodi :

" Shikata Ga Nai?"  (It Can’t Be Helped?)

- by Barbara Takei

Based on the lies of a “confidential informant,” in January 1942, the FBI invaded the home of my husband’s grandfather, a prosperous businessman in Seattle ’s International District.  The FBI ransacked the house and took his address books, Japanese language books and magazines, and even raffle tickets for a JACL fundraiser. He was arrested and held with no charges, without being sentenced, and without the representation of a lawyer. He was incarcerated in a Department of Justice prison in Bismarck , North Dakota as a dangerous alien enemy despite his innocence and the lack of any evidence. He was eventually paroled, financially drained, stripped of his dignity, his health destroyed, and his good name ruined. He died of a massive heart attack before the war ended.

Earlier this month in the small farming community of Lodi , California a disturbingly familiar scenario was unfolding. Ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat and his son Hamid were arrested as alleged “terrorists” who planned to attack shopping centers and hospitals. The allegations appeared in an FBI agent’s affidavit that was widely distributed and the source of hundreds of newspaper and television news stories that fanned fears of terrorist bombings in the Sacramento valley. Once the media were saturated with the threat of terrorist attacks, the FBI affidavit was withdrawn and described as a mistake.” A different affidavit was filed in court, reported the New York Times on 6/11/05, one that deleted any mention of terrorist attacks on large food stores and hospitals.

Within days of the arrests, amidst growing clamor of terrorism in Lodi , half a dozen members of the Florin Chapter of the JACL organized under the leadership of the Florin chapter civil rights chair, Andy Noguchi, attended an emergency forum at a Stockton mosque. The mosque was filled with fathers and sons and wives and children - all of whom feared for their safety and protection, not from the supposed Islamic “terrorists” among them, but from Federal law enforcement officials.

The scene at the mosque was a vivid and haunting reminder of the mistreatment of our Japanese immigrant forebears during World War II, something many of us thought could not happen again after the success of the Japanese American redress movement and the Presidential apology in 1988. How wrong we were.

The Muslim community in Stockton and Lodi reported the threatening and intimidating presence of the FBI, feeling themselves the target of aggressive FBI surveillance and interviews.

“Planes and helicopters are flying over and around our neighborhoods. The government agents question innocent people at work and at their homes; they follow innocent people around the block as though they are guilty of something,” said Hamza El-Nakhal, describing the constant surveillance. Nakhal is President of the Sacramento Valley chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide Islamic civil rights and advocacy group that has monitored the FBI’s activities in the Pakistani community in Lodi .

“They force people to take lie detector tests by threatening to put them in jail if they do not take the test. At one home agents wanted to search, they kicked the door open and pointed weapons at the heads of women.”

“Instead of feeling that these law enforcement agents are here to protect us, it seems more like the community is under siege, invaded by over 100 FBI agents,” said El-Nakhal.

“We are not supporting terrorism. America is our country. If anyone harbored terrorists, we would be the first to report it. We are innocent but we feel that we are being treated as criminals in the same way that Japanese Americans were treated as the enemy after Pearl Harbor was bombed,” said El-Nakhal. “People in our community are filled with fear and worry that the same things that happened during World War II will happen once again.”

As our group from Florin JACL drove home from Lodi , we pondered the events taking place and wondered what to believe.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way my husband’s grandfather was treated as a dangerous criminal even though he was innocent. I also remembered that very few people stood up to speak out and challenge the way Japanese Americans were being stripped of their rights and their freedom during World War II.

What lessons have we learned from our own terrible experiences, treated as the enemy because we looked like them? Do we truly believe the guiding principle of justice in America, “innocent until proven guilty?”

We can remain silent and console ourselves with “shikata ga nai.” Personally, I am grateful that the Florin Chapter, in which I am proud to claim membership, has risen to the occasion and extended support to a community that is sorely in need of friends.