Thanks to Stephen Jeong, with the Friends of Mukai, for marking the Feb. 19th 77th anniversary of the Japanese internment by showing the film “Then They Came for Us” at the Vashon Theatre. This powerful film gives witness to the anguish, humiliation and extreme hardship visited on Japanese American citizens born from fear and racism, and it warns of the dangers that unfounded fear-mongering can and does bring.

Thanks also to Swan Eagle Fitzgerald for standing up toward the end of the evening, with uncommon vulnerability voicing her anguish over the past genocide in America of its indigenous people and her lament as to the brutal ways immigrants and refugees are targeted, including ripping brown skinned children from the arms of their parents. No one said a word when she asked, “What should we do?” Perhaps no one really knows, but thanks to her for her willingness to express raw emotion and deep disturbance toward government policies and actions that bring harm.

— Merna Ann Hecht