I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a while now. It takes a while to walk out to the end of the pier and stare into a sensitive issue that is likely to provoke a very strong reaction from so many people.

On February 3, Joi Ito published a snippet that opened some people’s eyes to racism in Japan. [here]

My in-laws are more than familiar with this. In the early 1970s, they spent a year and a half living in Japan while my father-in-law covered the World’s Fair for the Globe and Mail.

My brother-in-law was born in Japan. But before they allowed my mother-in-law into the delivery room, they made her sign a form stating that the child that was about to be born would never claim to be Japanese and would never seek any of the benefits of Japanese citizenship.

From Joi’s article, things haven’t improved much in 40 years.

Tags: brother-in-law, father-in-law, Globe and Mail, Japan, racism, xenophobia

I am writing this from Toronto. I am in shock that I am here, as the events over the last 24 hours seem like a bad dream. It appears that the US media has not picked it up on this crisis. In fact, I am
having difficulty getting to US news sites and blog servers from Canada.

Yesterday, representatives from DHS arrived at my office and took me into a conference room along with the CEO and COO. The COO (a Canadian with a permanent resident status) and I were told that we and are families were being taken to Logan airport and placed on a flight to Canada. They then handcuffed us and took us out through the back door to an unmarked bus, with about 20 others onboard. There were guards in paramilitary uniforms I could not identify.

After three or four more stops (it was a blur, I can’t remember it all), we arrived at logan. I was re-united with Samantha and the boys in a abandoned hangar, where there were 200-300 of these unidentified paramilitary guards. There had to be 2-3,000 people in the hangar.

We were herded onto a series of C-5 cargo planes and flown for about 90 minutes. Off the plane, and left at what turns out to be an abandoned airfield just outside Toronto. AFter about 20 minutes, OPP and RCMP officers appeared, looking as stunned as we were.

Does anyone know what’s going on?

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Sound scary? Well, I would say April Fool’s Day, if it weren’t for the fact that the current xenophobic ranting going on in the United States makes me feel that this scenario is not so far-fetched. I am here legally on an H-1B, but could be deported at the whim of the US Government. And these whims appear to engulfing the American psyche.

Right now, the targets are the “illegal immigrants”. This is white, middle-class code for “latin immigrants, regardless of status”. But will it stop there?

As the US fortunes are matched by other growing economies, will this xenophobic and racist tendency lead to all immigrants being targeted, regardless of status and origin? Is the tradition of US isolationism rearing its head in a world of crumbling borders and economic barriers?

Is the US really ready for the world?

Technorati Tags: immigration, racism, xenophobia, isolationism, USA, Canada, globalization

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Keeping tabs on the news from home, it appears that our nation has condemned many communities of the First Peoples to communities with water not fit for any living thing. [here and here]

Canada is consistently rated one of the best countries in the world to live in. But how can this tragedy be allowed to continue? How can a developed nation, holding huge reserves of the world’s water supply, poison it’s own First Peoples with the basis of life?

Canada likes to see itself as morally superior to the United States. But allowing the systemic racism embedded in the culture of leadership to doom a generation of the most valuable (and undervalued) people in our country to disease and poverty is a shame that needs to be exposed.

The cover needs to be taken off this pot; and like Katrina, the boiling mess underneath will show the true face of the nation.

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Technorati: Canada, Kashechewan, Kwicksutaineuk, water

IceRocket: Canada, Kashechewan, Kwicksutaineuk, water

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