Shosuke Sasaki's 20-Year Battle to Eradicate "Jap" from Print Media - Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment
In the 1950s, Shosuke Sasaki launched a campaign to have the word “Jap” re-classed as a racial slur and eliminated from print media. He would continue that work for the better part of the...
densho.org
In the 1950s, Shosuke Sasaki launched a campaign to have the word “Jap” re-classed as a racial slur and eliminated from print media. He would continue that work for the better part of the next 20 years.
Born in Japan, Sasaski immigrated to the United States in 1919. Shortly after his 1939 graduation from the University of Washington, he was incarcerated at the Minidoka concentration camp for the duration of World War II.
After the war, he relocated to New York where he worked for Standard & Poor’s financial institution before relocating to Denver and, eventually, Seattle.
Sasaki is perhaps best know for his work on the Seattle Plan for redress in the early 1970s, but for 20 years prior to that he waged an eloquent, persistent, and, at times, acerbic campaign to eliminate the pejorative use of the word “Jap” in print media and to have the term listed more appropriately in dictionaries.
Sasaki’s personal dedication to the cause was remarkable but the support of the Japanese American Citizens League and other activists were critical to his success. Here are some highlights from that campaign.
Why is Jap any different than Brit or Pole, they are not considered slurs.
If I buy a Jap Type 99 Arisaka rifle do I get points off for not spelling out Japanese?
LOL.....Just wait till they find out what Dr. Seuss did during the war.
