Where Were You When the Towers Fell?

I was halfway across the world from the East Coast. I didn't even live in the U.S. at the time. And I didn't even have plans to do so again until the day after when my mother simply said my father just got a transfer order to New York and we were going with him because as a family, we didn't have any other choice.

That is the gist of my 9-11 story. As someone who had lived in the U.S. as a young child and had loved the country and so many of its people, I can't say it wasn't personal to me. We turned on the TV that evening (in Japan, it was nighttime) after I got home from my ballet lesson and saw black smoke billowing out of the first tower. My mother called my father (a journalist) to make sure he was watching this at work. And while she was still on the phone, the second plane crashed into the second tower on live TV.

As the night went on, and we heard about the Pentagon and the other plane, I was worried. Worried about our family friends who lived in Northern Virginia and worked or went to school in D.C. And another who lived in Jersey, not too far from the city. But as shaken as I was by an attack on a country that I felt had formed part of my identity, I was still an ocean and a full length of a continent away. It could never have been as personal as it was for so many of the people I would meet in the following years.

My father moved to New York that January. My mother and I waited until I finished middle school (which goes through 9th grade) in March (the school year starts in April) and joined him in moving to the suburbs of the city that was still reeling from the effects of 9-11. And I was thrown into a community that was full of people who at the very least knew someone who was there or knew someone who had lost someone. As a teenager torn from my comfort zone into a new to town in a small and tight-knight community (at least I spoke the language and was familiar with the culture), I was grappling with a host of other problems. But I still remember feeling like an imposter when we were assigned to produce some piece of work regarding the personal experiences of 9-11 around the time of the first anniversary. I remember hearing about the Japanese girl who moved back to Japan with her family because her father died in the towers. I didn't even know her or experience her pain vicariously. I lived in the New York suburbs in 2002, but I wasn't there in 2001. I wasn't there, so how can I claim it to be personal?

And I can't. At least, not to the degree that so many of my friends do. But I do remember where I was, what I was doing, and what I felt when the towers fell. It's a hell of a lot more personal to me than to the children who learned about 9-11 in textbooks. It was a life-changing event. It was a world-changing event. It was the event that reminded everyone in the world what determined hate can do to even the most powerful nation on earth. Never forget? In addition to the memories of those innocent and brave souls lost that day, let's never forget that last part either.

南軍旗とアメリカ南部と白人至上主義の歴史

６月のサウスカロライナ州チャールストンの教会銃撃事件以来、南軍旗（Confederate flag）の展示や使用をめぐる対立が激しさを増している。Confederate flagは、南部白人が主張するところによると、南部文化の『誇り』の象徴であるが、特に黒人やその他のマイノリティーらにとっては人種差別や人種隔離主義の歴史を具現化する存在である。いかに旗の支持者が「自分たちは人種差別主義者でない」と主張しようが、Confederate flagが２０世紀半ば頃から人種差別主義者や人種隔離主義擁護の象徴として掲げられてきたことは否定できない。実際、チャールストン事件の銃撃犯は、インターネット上に人種差別主義を擁護する意見と共に、Confederate flagをはじめとする人種差別主義のシンボルを身に着けた写真を掲載している。

事件後、Confederate flagを飾り続けていたサウスカロライナ州議会が同旗を撤去したり、アマゾンやウォルマート等の全米大手企業がConfederate flagの販売を中止したりしたが、これに伴い、同旗の支持者が猛反発。南部の誇りと歴史を消し去る行為だと主張し、旗の保護を呼びかける集会が南部各地で相次いでいる。彼らは、Confederate flagやそれを支持する集会は憎しみではなく、文化的遺産に基づくものだ（"heritage, not hate"）としているが、この考え方には問題がある。

Being Japanese in August

It's August. Which means, for someone who grew up in Japan, that it's time to remember the tragedies of war and renew a resolve for peace. August 6, 1945: Hiroshima; August 9, 1945: Nagasaki; August 15, 1945: surrender/end of the war. Over a hundred thousand people (mostly civilians) killed just in those two days. Hundreds of thousands (again, mostly civilians) killed in air raids on major Japanese cities. Dates and numbers drilled into our heads from a young age, along with repeated messages about the tragedy of war and need for peace.

Every year, there are peace ceremonies on the 6th, 9th, and 15th. There are moments of silence at the moments the respective bombs were dropped and at noon on the 15th. Officials and chosen student representatives make lofty, idealistic speeches about the preciousness of life and the importance of peace.

The problematic whitewashing of history* and the oversimplified nature of the wish for peace aside, it was important for me that I learned about what happened to civilians in my country during the war, how they suffered. That was the environment in which my grandparents grew up. And the words in the textbooks and the images in the documentaries flooding the channels around this time every year came alive from stories that my mother would mention (because my grandparents would never talk about their wartime experiences to me). Constant fear of American air raids. My grandmother in her teens, her education interrupted and forced into working at a factory with her classmates because that's where the girls were deemed to be needed. I can just imagine it: my sweet, frail, kind grandmother as a young girl, walking over bloated bodies to get out of the rubble after her city was bombed.

Heroes: Still a Fun Show, but a Failure from a Feminist Perspective

When I found out a few weeks ago that Heroes is returning to TV in the form of a sequel miniseries, I was pretty excited. Even though I emotionally gave up on the show during the third season and stopped watching after a couple episodes into the fourth and final season, the first season is still near and dear to my heart. So, I decided to re-watch/finish the entire show before the fall and am now in the process of Netflix binge watching sessions. The first couple of seasons have not been disappointing, at least in the sense of the show being entertaining and having a good story line. The passage of 10 or so years since the premier has not dampened my passion for science fiction and superhero stories, but somehow, I am much less amused by the depictions of and the missed opportunities with the female characters in the show.

The show has characters from a decent range of racial, socioeconomic, and other backgrounds compared to network shows in general (although--I have to get this out of my system--the Japanese cultural references and most of the language usage is pretty damn atrocious). There are also a number of female characters with special abilities, but in general, even the female characters with abilities seem to be relegated to stereotyped roles, and their story lines seem to be driven by other (male) characters to a greater degree than the male characters.

(By the way, if you don't want spoilers, don't read ahead. You've been warned)

妊娠中絶と米国政治と生殖の健康に関する権利

先月、Center for Medical Progress (CMP)という妊娠中絶に反対する政治組織が、Planned Parenthood (PP) という女性の生殖に関する健康 (reproductive health) 関連サービスを提供する団体を攻撃するビデオを数本公開した。CMPは、これらのビデオが、PP関係者が中絶された胎児の体内組織を売買している証拠であると主張しているが、PPが違法行為に関与していることを認めている発言は捉えられていない。一般人にとって、中絶プロセスの具体的な説明は、多くの手術や医療行為同様、悍ましくさえ聞こえるものであるが、米国連邦法上、中絶後の胎児の体内組織を研究目的に寄付した団体が、適宜な経費分を回復することは違法ではない。

だが、これらのビデオは、PPを特に敵対視する中絶反対派に、PPを攻撃する格好の機会をもたらした。この結果、共和党・保守派議員の多くが、連邦政府によるPPへの資金提供を取り消そうとしている。

アメリカ政治において、妊娠中絶に関する政策ほど激しい意見の対立が見られる話題は数少ない。妊娠中絶の合法性を支持する人々は、女性がいつ、どのように妊娠するかを自由に選べる権利の一環として安全で合法的な中絶へのアクセスを望んでいることから、"pro-choice"と呼ばれている。これに対し、妊娠中絶反対派は、受精の瞬間から受精卵・胎児は全ての権利を有する人間であると考え、妊娠中絶は殺人であると見方をしていることから、"pro-life"と名乗っている。

アメリカ社会を分断する銃保持の権利

先日、米・サウスカロライナ州チャールストンで白人至上主義者の若者が、黒人の奴隷解放運動とかかわりの深い黒人中心の教会で、同教会のクレメンタ・ピンクニー牧師を含む黒人９人を射殺した。この事件とアメリカの人種問題については、できればまた後日言及したいと思うが、今回は、アメリカ社会における銃文化について書こうと思う。

アメリカは、世界的に見ても異様な銃保持率及び銃への愛着を持った社会である。銃は、アメリカ社会のあらゆる側面に浸透し、子供用の玩具の銃も異様なものではない。だが、全てのアメリカ人が銃に執着している訳ではない。特に過去十数年に渡り増加を見せる銃による大量殺人事件を受け、民主党支持者を中心に銃規制を強く要望する者も少なくない。Pew Research Centerの２０１３年調査によれば、民主党支持者の７９％が、銃規制強化により銃による大量殺人の死亡率を減少させられると考えている。彼らにとって、銃保持の権利を『自由』の基準としているようなアメリカ社会は病んでいるものなのだ。一方、保守派を中心とした共和党支持者は、銃保持の権利をアメリカ合衆国憲法によって与えられた基本的人権と考えており、どの様な形であれ、全ての銃規制はこの基本的人権を侵害し、アメリカという国家の根本的精神である『自由』を踏みにじる行為だと見る者が多い。

Sisterhood Values (The Blood-Based Kind)

I recently had the pleasure of finally watching the worldwide phenomenon known as Frozen. It is indeed a film that deserves all the hype and awards it has received, but today, I want to talk about sisterhood. Not the female-friendship, sorority kind that I'm used to talking about, but the kind pertaining to "real" sisters related by blood. I never really think about this latter type of sisterhood, most likely because I do not have any sisters related by blood (while I have plenty of sorority sisters and other women in my life whose friendships mean so much to me). But some recent pop culture mega-hits I've liked have centered around the strong love between sisters. And I've really liked that this love seems to receive greater weight than romantic love, even where romantic love is present as a central plot theme.

Frozen is very clearly a story about sisters. When they were children, Elsa and Anna were very close, but Elsa is forced to be distant from her younger sister when she inadvertently hurts Anna with her powers. Despite Elsa's insistence on keeping her distance, it is Anna who pushes forward to help her. Even when Elsa, again, inadvertently hurts Anna, it is pretty much only Anna who prioritizes Elsa. Anna is dying from the injuries inflicted by Elsa, but instead of taking the action she believes would save herself (an act of true love, which everyone at this point has interpreted to mean getting a kiss from her true love, Kristoff), she goes towards her sister who is on the verge of being killed and stands in between Elsa and the villain with the sword. At that moment, Elsa's inadvertent curse on Anna is complete and Anna is frozen in place, but that act of self-sacrifice was the "act of true love" needed to break the curse. In going to her sister instead of her "true love," Anna saves both her sister and herself. She really is no Sleeping Beauty (I mean, she even punches the bad guy in the face after all this).