The Power of Faith and Hope
Japanese American’s Words Inspire Optimism
In 1943, Marion Konishi Takehara graduated as the valedictorian of Amache Senior High School, in Colorado, while interned at a camp for Japanese Americans. Despite being forced to relocate from her Los Angeles home after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Executive Order 9066, the incarcerated teenager’s graduation speech epitomizes faith in the human spirit.
She is often asked how she was not angry at the time and why she does not feel resentful today. Takehara, who is now 96, refers to the Japanese term gaman — enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. “My parents taught us that it was something we had to do — gaman — and as kids we knew that. It was our duty as Americans to go to camp and that’s why I have never been resentful. It was really hard, but my dad is the one who was the strongest in the family and he pulled us through.”
In May of 2016, as a part of the annual Amache Pilgrimage, Takehara returned to Amache for the first time since she left the internment camp in 1943. She was asked to again deliver her graduation speech and after hearing about it on the news, Colorado Senator Cory Gardner read Takehara’s speech on the floor of the Senate the following month. Her inspiring words are now recorded in the Congressional Records of the National Archives and are reprinted with permission here.
Meredith Montgomery is the granddaughter of Marion Konishi Takehara.
America, Our Hope is in You
Commencement Speech, June 25, 1943
by Marion Konishi
One and a half years ago I knew only one America — an America that gave me an equal chance in the struggle for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If I were asked then — “What does America mean to you?” — I would answer without any hesitation and with all sincerity — “America means freedom, equality, security and justice.”
The other night while I was preparing for this speech, I asked myself this same question — “What does America mean to you?” I hesitated — I was not sure of my answer. I wondered if America still means and will mean freedom, equality, security and justice when some of its citizens were segregated, discriminated against and treated so unfairly. I knew I was not the only American seeking an answer.
Then I remembered that old saying — All the answers to the future will be found in the past for all men. So unmindful of the searchlights reflecting in my windows, I sat down and tried to recall all the things that were taught to me in my history, sociology and American life classes. This is what I remembered:
America was born in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, and for 167 years it has been held as the hope, the only hope, for the common man. America has guaranteed to each and all, native and foreign, the right to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak and act as he pleased — as a free man equal to every other man.
Every revolution within the last 167 years which had for its aim more freedom was based on her constitution. No cry from an oppressed people has ever gone unanswered by her. America froze, shoeless, in the snow at Valley Forge, and battled for her life at Gettysburg. She gave the world its greatest symbols of democracy: George Washington, who freed her from tyranny; Thomas Jefferson, who defined her democratic course; and Abraham Lincoln, who saved her and renewed her faith.
Sometimes America failed and suffered. Sometimes she made mistakes, great mistakes, but she always admitted them and tried to rectify all the injustice that flowed from them. I noticed that the major trend in American history has been towards equality and fair play for all. America hounded and harassed the Indians, then remembering that these were the first Americans, she gave them back their citizenship. She enslaved the Negroes, then again remembering Americanism, she wrote out the Emancipation Proclamation. She persecuted the German Americans during the First World War, then recalling that America was born of those who came from every nation seeking liberty and justice, she repented. Her history is full of errors but with each mistake she has learned and has marched forward onward toward a goal of security and peace and a society of free men where the understanding that all men are created equal, an understanding that all men whatever their race, color or religion be given an equal opportunity to serve themselves and each other according to their needs and abilities.
I was once again at my desk. True, I was just as much embittered as any other evacuee. But I had found in the past the answer to my question. I had also found my faith in America — faith in the America that is still alive in the hearts, minds and consciences of true Americans today — faith in the American sportsmanship and attitude of fair play that will judge citizenship and patriotism on the basis of actions and achievements and not on the basis of physical characteristics.
Can we the graduating class of Amache Senior High School still believe that America means freedom, equality, security and justice? Do I believe this? Do my classmates believe this? Yes, with all our hearts, because in that faith, in that hope, is my future, our future, and the world’s future.
