As we left February, which was African American History Month—traditionally referred to as Black History Month—we had Women’s History Month in March. Each month’s purpose is to highlight and celebrate [...] Continue Reading
Racism
Marion Masada: Survivor, Historian, Teacher
Marion Masada is a survivor of one of America’s most tragic and misguided actions. As we prepared for our interview, she gently admonished me. “Call it a concentration camp, please,” she advised. This [...] Continue Reading
Day of Remembrance
It was an historically ironic location for the Japanese American Citizens League’s annual Day of Remembrance—the Fresno Fairgrounds, where thousands of American citizens were held for months living in [...] Continue Reading
No Whitewashing the Past
(Editor’s note: This is the story of Vance McKinney, as told to the author. McKinney is a truck driver (who hauls mostly agricultural produce) in a farmworker community. His father was a farmworker. [...] Continue Reading
A New Beginning
In early 2023, a Fresno restaurant was forced to shut down when it was bombarded by baseless racist accusations. Several months later and after much heartache, it reopened with a new name and a new [...] Continue Reading
Yokuts Valley: Respect or Racism?
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors are making a last-ditch attempt to hold on to S— Valley and erase the town’s new name, Yokuts Valley. The supervisors voted 3-2 for a charter amendment that [...] Continue Reading
Japanese Concentration Camps in Images
In 1942, the infamous Executive Order 9066, signed by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered all Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans living on the West Coast to be interned in [...] Continue Reading
Las Elecciones 2024 Estarán Marcadas por el Voto Étnico y el Racismo
POR IVÁN WIELIKOSIELEC El 15 de mayo de 2018, el por entonces presidente Donald Trump autorizaba la construcción de un muro en la frontera mexicana de 300 millas. ¿La razón? “proteger al país de [...] Continue Reading
Barbed Wire Baseball
It is a date that will live in infamy—Feb. 19, 1942. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. It disrupted the lives of more than 120,000 Japanese [...] Continue Reading
WWII-Era Internment Camp Unites Asians and Latinos
Mothers and grandmothers clutched children close on trains rolling through this dry stretch of south Texas, not knowing what waited for them at the end of the line. They were Peruvians of Japanese [...] Continue Reading
Protecting Indigenous Rights
According to Fresno City Council Member Miguel Arias, Fresno is the first city in California to make changes to its Municipal Code that end discrimination against Indigenous people. The amendment also [...] Continue Reading
Neglect and Fatal Defects
The Fresno County Board of Supervisors (BOS) seems incompetent, indifferent and neglectful as they preside over a county care and service crisis. Several examples of the board’s offensive and obdurate [...] Continue Reading