Anti-Muslim Backlash sounds so familiar to Japanese-Americans

A day doesn’t go by that Mohammad ElFarra doesn’t drive by the Islamic Center of Manteca, for which he serves as Imam, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Just over a month ago, the center unveiled a beautiful mosaic above the main doorway, a gift to the community.

The faith does not allow for representations of people in its art, but in commissioning mosaic artist Pippa Murray of Sausalito, the members wanted something to reflect the community. Her creation, made with 4,000 tiles, includes a border of diamond shapes found in Yokuts Indian baskets and vines with almond blossoms, the major crop of the region. Finally, the piece that was funded by a grant from The Creative Work Fund features a segment of the Koran’s scripture done by calligrapher Zubair Simab.

“It says the most honorable of you in God’s eye is the one who is most righteous and pious,” ElFarra said. “I think a lot of people have that image in the media that honor (for Muslims) comes from sacrificing your body or blowing yourself up, and that’s quite opposite of our belief. The message entails what I wanted our community to know, that to us, the person who will earn the honor from God and be given a high standard is the one most righteous and pious, who does good deeds, loves his neighbors, loves his friends, cares for the environment, animals, trees.”

Convincing an American public of that basic Muslim tenant is not easy. Too many equate Muslims with terrorists. When a white person commits mass murder, he has “mental health issues,” ElFarra points out. If a Muslim kills, it stems from Islam.

“Where’s the fairness in that?” asked ElFarra, who, unlike friends and family members, understands and accepts that he will be pulled out of line and patted down every time he walks through airport security.

“I don’t mind they think you look like images of people who have done certain things to this country. They want to be safe. I understand. But acknowledge after you pat me down and found nothing that you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

North Hollywood-born ElFarra, whose family originally migrated from Gaza, worries about his 11-year-old daughter.

“She used to want to wear (the hijab) before she was of an age that she had to, but now she’s afraid to wear it, especially when she sees events like this Ben Carson guy trying to say a Muslim can’t be president,” ElFarra said. “My daughter is the type who thinks she can be president. It’s disheartening to me that she’s exemplifying the fear of being a Muslim and being proud of it.”

Some parents of other faiths, who have the same dreams for their own children, fail to empathize with ElFarra.

Those who do stand with Muslim-Americans are Japanese-Americans, in particular the Florin Japanese American Citizens League.

“Back in 1991 during the Gulf War, our chapter president at the time, Carol Hisatomi, was noticing all the backlash developing against Arabs and Muslims and said we should reach out to the community,” said Andy Noguchi, Florin’s current co-president. "A few of us went (to a meeting) and heard about people blaming Americans for the war in the Middle East, and we know that’s not right.”

That meeting launched a relationship that continues.

On the same day the Islamic Center unveiled its mosaic, the Florin and Sacramento chapters of JACL held a re-dedication of Walerga Assembly Center.

Japanese American citizens from San Joaquin and Sacramento counties were assembled on the Sacramento property in 1942 before being sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II as possible enemies of the United States.

Among those who attended the re-dedication of the memorial erected in 1987 was Alice Ueyama Taniguchi, who lived in the Delta islands and was 10 years old when her family of five was ordered to Walerga.

“So many (San Joaquin County) people went to the Stockton Assembly Center (at the Fairgrounds), but we had to go here,” Taniguchi said that August day in Sacramento. “All I can remember is that we had these sacks with hay in them and that was our mattress. I was sitting there crying. We were shocked, and it was hot, and this one man came along and said ‘Don’t cry.' He had to fill those sacks of hay that we were sitting on.”

From Walerga, Taniguchi and her family were sent to Tule Lake. After the war, her family’s property was gone. They ended up starting over in Linden. She married and moved to Turlock, where she raised her family.

At 10, she was hardly a threat to the country, any more than ElFarra’s daughter, Yasmeen, is today. Or most Muslim-Americans.

“Our government made a very poor decision (in 1942) because of their panic over war,” said Congresswoman Doris Matsui, one of the speakers at the memorial.

The knee jerk reaction was repeated after 9/11, and the JACL stepped up to offer support that its members would have appreciated when they were seen as the enemy.

The relationship between the two groups continues and is not one-sided.

At a post-9/11 program of both groups, a local Imam told the community that “if you want to understand the fears and threats and the suspicions you’re facing now,you need to go to Manzanar.”

Thus was born an annual pilgrimage led by the Florin JACL and the local Council on American Islamic Relations to the site of the internment camp in the California desert.

Together, the two groups are working to make sure such injustice is never repeated, and to show that Muslim Americans are like other immigrants.

"They're doing the best they can for their kids and their family, trying to succeed,” Noguchi said.

— Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or lgilbert@recordnet.com. Follow her on Twitter @lorigrecord.