JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Kristian Lei, left, plays Kei Kimura; Dann Seki plays an older Sam Kimura; and Ethan Le Phong is Sam Kimura in his youth in the Manoa Valley Theatre production of “Allegiance.”
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John Berger’s review of the musical based on the internment travails of George Takei and family (“Manoa Valley Theatre’s ‘Allegiance’ blends harsh history lesson with entertainment,” Star-Advertiser, March 30) said that during World War II, “Nazi-style race laws prohibiting interracial marriage were being enforced in more than half the country.”
Ironically, Japanese were spared legal discrimination in Germany from 1936 when the Nazi Party Bureau of Race Research defined them as honorary Aryans — Hitler’s gesture to an emerging ally: Tokyo. Some status-sensitive Japanese-Americans took “honorary Aryan” and other semantic courtesies as signs of respect. Their illusions fed uncritical, even cosmetic, coverage of the Third Reich in the vernacular press before Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile, Washington monitored, recorded, reviewed and drew its own conclusions — with fateful results.
John J. Stephan
Emeritus professor of history
University of Hawaii
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