Walt Woodward - defender of human rights

Wolfgang Hampel http://wolfganghampel.blogspot.com/ had the honour to interview Walt Woodward.

Walt Woodward was a hero, a defender of human rights. We all should be like him but we know very well that these personalities are very rare. The world would need lots of Walter Woodwards.

He told Wolfgang Hampel: It won't happen again because people know much more now than they did in the past.
Walt Woodward was optimistic the same way Bonnie Shride was.

( see also Betty MacDonald Fan Club Posting 'Bonnie Shride - a wonderful lady from Vashon Island' )
http://bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com

For Bonnie Shride, the worst thing on Vashon happened when she was in eighth grade. One-third of her fellow students were of Japanese descent, and one day they were all gone, rounded up for internment during World War II. ``When I talked to my parents, they said it was because of the war. It was so unfair," Bonnie Shride recalled. She doesn't think such a thing could happen again: ``People know more now. We're more aware of everyone's rights."

When Wolfgang Hampel interviewed author David Guterson, he seemed to be rather pessimistic.

Wolfgang Hampel will never forget the moment when he once asked Monica Sone: When did you move away from Seattle?
Monica Sone answered with anger and sadness in her so beautiful voice: I didn't move away. They moved me away and I never came back.

The question is: Are we able to learn from faults in the past?

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?thread=33296&offset=0#post_71449


Journalist Walt Woodward dies at age 91
Two memorial services are slated for March 24.

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/bir/news/19677699.html

Walter C. Woodward, who as publisher and editor of the Bainbridge Island Review was one of the few editorial voices to consistently oppose the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, died in his sleep yesterday. He was 91.

Walt Woodward, editor opposed to internment of Japanese, dies Wednesday, March 14, 2001
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/editor14.shtml

Remembering Walter Woodward (1910-2001)
HistoryLink.org Essay 3111 :
In this People's History Gerald Elfendahl remembers the Bainbridge Island journalist and defender of human rights Walter C. Woodward Jr. (1910-2001). Woodward was an exemplary journalist who edited and published the Bainbridge Review.
Walter Woodward and his wife Mildred Woodward (1909-1989) were the only editors on the West Coast to regularly editorialize in defense of the Bill of Rights and neighbors of Japanese ancestry who were unlawfully uprooted during World War II and interned in concentration camps by Presidential Executive Order 9066. Woodward was one of only 100 citizens inducted into Washington state's "Centennial Hall of Honor" for humanitarian and civil libertarian contributions to the state's quality of life.

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3111

Books "In Defense of Our Neighbors": Editors against internment

Mary Woodward has written a book about her parents, Walt and Milly Woodward, editors of the Bainbridge Review, who were the first to write editorials condemning the relocation of 227 Bainbridge Islanders of Japanese ancestry to internment camps.

By Susan Gilmore Seattle Times staff reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2008364225_bainbridge090.html

YouTube - Interview - Mary Woodward - In Defense of Our Neighbors

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIhhKX4kP-U


http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?thread=33296&offset=0#post_71449

Comments:

Tens of thousands of European Americans were also sent to internment camps all over the United States during World War II and held in these camps for years. Too bad this history is never mentioned or examined as well. Here is another source on the internment of German-Americans during the war (some were even held up to 3 years after the war at Ellis Island):

You can read more about this here:

http://www.gaic.info/

http://www.foitimes.com/internment/history.htm

History of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest

The wartime treatment of people of Japanese descent in the United States, documented in the readings by Monica Sone and Roger Daniels, hardly offered a great deal of promise for improved race relations after 1940. Yet, for a variety of reasons World War Two did mark a dramatic turning point in U.S. immigration and naturalization policy.

©Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington. All rights reserved.

http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Course%20Index/Lessons/22/22.html


Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter (1953)
Monica Sone’s memoir of growing up in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s, and then being incarcerated at Minidoka and relocated to the Midwest during World War Two, is markedly different from the Matsushitas’ correspondence and poetry in several ways.

History and Literature in the Pacific Northwest

© Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington. All rights reserved.

http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Hist%20n%20Lit/Part%20Four/Commentaries/Sone%20Comm.html

Interesting reviews of Monica Sone's book Nisei Daughter

Some links to very interesting reviews of Monica Sone's very important book Nisei Daughter
http://jenniferandbooks.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

Thursday, October 09, 2008
Nisei Daughter
by Monica Sone

What a wonderful story. She writes with such humor and fun that you sometimes forget it's a true story. Her family always made the best of things despite the racism during WW2 and being in a terrible camp with mud and dust and small quarters.
Monica will be interviewed Wednesday October 15th in Canton, Ohio as part of the kick off of the One Community/One Book program and the KIMONO exhibit at the Canton Museum of Art.
I highly recommend the book and check back for my review of her interview and the kick off event.
5 of 5 rating


http://bookstastegood.blogspot.com/2009/04/monica-sone-and-question-of-race.html

Monica Sone's Nisei Eyes is a biographical account of a Japanese-American girl living in Seattle during the 2nd world war. She eventually gets sent to internment camps when she's in her young adulthood, but much of the book details her experience being a first generation Japanese-American girl.
I liked this book. Mostly because I can identify, obviously, with the conflicted feelings of being both 100% Asian and 100% American, and yet at the same time feeling like you actually belong nowhere completely.

Monica Sone - a wonderful friend and brilliant author of Nisei Daughter

Interview with Monica Sone - author of Nisei Daughter

http://rhankins.blogspot.com/2008/10/daughter-with-author-monica-sone_16.html


Monica Sone has fans all over the world. She wrote Nisei Daughter and many authors adore her book for example David Guterson, author of Snow falling on Cedars. We got so many comments from our international fans. They learned so much after reading Nisei Daughter. To us it's one of the most important books we've ever read. Thanks A Million dear Monica Sone in the name of your many fans for writing this fascinating autobiography. It's so important to know history and to learn from the past. We can understand everything much better because of your book Nisei Daughter.

Monica, you are so very bright, brave, wise, witty and you have the most beautiful voice ever just the way our beloved Betty MacDonald described you as Kimi in The Plague and I.
Nobody wants to be ill and stay in a hospital but with you I bet it would be like in paradise.

Monica, I just love and enjoy our phone calls so much. To me it's such a gift.

Lots of love and kisses and hugs and many greetings to you and your family especially to Susan, because she does a great job and every time I talk to you you sound younger and younger. You are a miracle, a genius but very human and warm!

All my love

Wolfgang Hampel,
your old Wolf and your many fans worldwide



What can I say after such a statement?

He did it well, didn't he?
Dear Monica Sone, we all adore your writing skills and your brilliant personality.
I'd like to say thank you so much for writing this very important work of literature because I among others had no idea about this dark part of history. Therefore Nisei Daughter is so important and after reading it nobody will ever forget it.

Best wishes,
Linde Lund
http://bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/

Monica Sone, Betty MacDonald's wonderful friend

This is a website for Monica Sone, Betty MacDonald's wonderful friend and author of Nisei Daughter.

You will find more info about Monica Sone, her Life and work.