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Meeting Notes March 4, 2015
Our Greeter this morning was Mustafa Jaffer and he did an excellent job.
President –Elect Herb rang the bell at 7:30 a.m. Herb then gave a very nice invocation.
GUESTS: Hilda Lewis; Dorothy Bloom; Luther Crest residents to hear George speak.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Feb 26th AWRC evening meeting was a success. We are adding another new member. See separate article.
The 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month will be evening meetings from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Next evening meeting is March 12th. VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED; PLEASE CONTACT BARBARA.
Our February Dining Out at Louie’s restaurant was a great success with good fellowship and good food with 21 attendees.
Today’s Snack Packing at Northwestern Lehigh H.S. is postponed until March 11th.
The special initiative starting right now is called “Purses for Polio” See details elsewhere.
The March Dining Out will be at Hunan Springs on March 20th starting at 6:30 PM.
On Friday March 27th AW Rotarians will have a JOINT LUNCHTIME MEETING with the Allentown RC at the Renaissance Hotel where the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.N. will be featured.
REGISTER IN ADVANCE at allentownrotary.org. AWRC will have an information table at this meeting.
Our regular Wed a.m. breakfast meeting STILL will be held that week.
Gwenn reviewed the contents of the Tempting Tastes folders that were given to each of us. Gary reminds us that we have only 30 more days to get sponsors and then get info into the program.
Note that TT has a Facebook page.
The Greeter scheduled for the March 11th meeting is Bob Gordon. The program will be Rep. Gary Day.
GAMBLING:
The “bag of goodies” door prize gift donated by Mustafa was won by Halyna. The $73 pot of the 50:50 was not won by Dan who selected a white marble.
FINES:
S-a-A Don Davis fined Gil Keller and Jeanne Shipe for no pins, and then Bob Gordon $7 for finishing 7th last season in sailboat racing.
HAPPY DOLLARS:
Geoff Legg is happy that his Freshman grandson finished in first place at the Easton Science Fair out of all HS grades.
Dale Hosteter donated $20 to honor Mike Henry for shoveling Dale’s driveway. Mike said he should take it back to pay the invoice that Mike just mailed.
Joe Goll is happy that his grandson Ethan is 6 months old on Friday.
Al Lewis was happy that wife Hilda was present. He also was happy that today is her birthday. We sang to her.
PROGRAM:
President-elect Herb introduced our own George Ikeda to present his true life experience as a Japanese American during World War II. George told us that in the early 1900s the U.S. Government encouraged immigrants to come to help settle the West, which included some Japanese. This stopped in 1924.
The Japanese were not allowed to become U.S. citizens, nor were they able to own property. But they created their own communities and set an excellent example in behavior. There was nobody on welfare and there were no arrests.
After Pearl Harbor the Governors of each state were given the authority to round up and inter suspicious people. These included Bedfast Priests, Teachers, etc. and they were told that they would not be harmed. There were anti-Japanese activists and the newspapers printed blatant lies about the Japanese Americans. But nobody interred ever was convicted of bad acts.
In January 1942 General John DeWitt – a racist – used the term “Military Necessity” and FDR on Feb 19, 1942 issued an executive order authorizing Governors to evict everybody -- but “Martial Law” never was declared.
In March of 1942 the Government began building internment camps and on April 29, 1942 George and the other six family members were sent to Rodeo Center in Nevada. Here they had communal showers and lousy food. The cook was selling the good food on the black market.
Many acquiesced, but George refused to accept the situation – he was but 20 years old, angry and he felt betrayed. Then on July 3rd they were told to pack up and transfer to the railroad station for a 7-day trip to Salinas. For the last 12 miles they rode on trucks in 100 deg. Heat to their new concentration camp called Poston 2. There were ten such camps. During the truck ride the elderly and the babies got very sick.
Here there were rows of tar-paper covered barracks. They slept on straw mattresses. There were 16 barracks for a planned 500 people that swelled to 4,000 at one time.
All of their meetings has to be conducted in English. Because of his upbringing George spoke good English and Japanese. He became an interpreter for the camp. They all had to do work of some kind. George having two years of Civil Engineering education was assigned to help dig a channel to bring water to create a swimming pool. Then he signed up to be a teacher, but the Government said “No” - he was not yet 21 years old.
In October 1942 school started. George worked with the students as a counselor. He helped them get placed into other schools, over 3600 of them. Initially all of the men were classified as 4C which is “enemy alien.” But if they volunteered to serve in the Army, they became 1A right away. George made contacts in the Philadelphia area and was able to have his brother go to a school near Haverford.
WW II ended in August 1945. The last camp did not close until 1946. The elderly were destitute and had no self-worth left. They went back to California, but were not welcomed in the towns. George believes that he was fortunate because a farmer took them in and gave them shelter and work.
In 1947 George became a part of a Civil Rights group that lead to legislation allowing Asians to become naturalized citizens and to own property in 1952. President Truman vetoed it but the veto was over-ridden. George and his family became citizens in 1958.
In the 1980’s George worked on legislation that lead to a formal Government apology to the Japanese Americans and some financial reparations in 1988.
CLOSING:
Herb and others hit some notes to start us singing a good rendition of “America the Beautiful.” This was followed by the recitation of the Pledge to the Flag of the United States and then the saying “One profits most who serves the best.”
ocus on membership for our Club. 
