US Commission on Civil Rights is now one-fourth Japanese

In conversations about racism in the US, the narrative tends to focus exclusively on whites and blacks. Asian Americans are often completely absent from the narrative and even from any conversation about race issues in the US. So I was surprised to see this tweet from Michael Yaki today about the US Commission on Civil Right's letter to the DOJ re: Ferguson.

I looked up Michael Yaki and found out he is one of two Japanese American commissioners on the US Commission on Civil Rights. There are only eight commissioners so Japanese Americans make up one-fourth of the Commission. Yaki is hapa - he is also of Chinese and native Hawaiian descent and is yonsei on his father's side. Karen Narasaki (twin sister of actor/playwright Ken Narasaki) was just appointed by President Obama last month (note: she isn't listed on the Commission's website yet). Narasaki is also yonsei on her father's side (Wikipedia mistakenly identifies her dad as nisei). Both of their fathers were incarcerated by the US government during WWII in spite of being third generation US citizens, yet both men ended up working for the government — Narasaki's father served in the 442nd and Yaki's father served for 30 years in the Foreign Service. Their families' experiences as both victims of US government-sanctioned racism and employees of the government played an important role in Yaki and Narasaki becoming involved with civil rights issues.

Further reading:

• SF Gate City Brights: Michael Yaki: Father’s Day 2010: What Mandela and many Dads have in common
• AsianAvenue.com: Profile: Karen Narasaki (archived)

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If you don't know about the Japanese American incarceration during WWII, you may find my introductory post helpful.