By BEN HAMAMOTO
Nichi Bei Times

Every 10 years, the United States Census Bureau collects statistical data on residents of this country. The data is intended to identify problems and inequities, fund social and economic programs, and generally serve the public good. However, a raging immigration debate and increasing wariness of government encroachment on civil liberties in the name of fighting terror has many questioning what “the public good” means.

By ALEC YOSHIO MacDONALD
Nichi Bei Times Contributor

CHICAGO — “A large part of where we are today is because of becoming political, and I’d say that if we intend to maintain the status that we have now, we need to continue that trend.”

Brandon Mita is talking about something very near to his heart: the participation of Japanese Americans in community activism. Even at the young age of 23, this Yonsei from the suburbs of Chicago has the knowledge and experience to speak with unquestionable credibility and remarkable passion on the subject.

Intro-ducing a New Series — In this Nichi Bei Times exclusive, Dr. Greg Robinson, author of “By the Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans,” examines little-known but prominent Japanese Americans.

By GREG ROBINSON
Nichi Bei Times Contributor

In a recent issue, the Nichi Bei Times ran a feature on Scott Fujita of the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints, a professional football player from a Japanese American family. Many readers doubtless figured that Fujita must be the first Japanese American in the NFL. Others might have supposed that it was Wally Yonamine, who joined the San Francisco 49ers in 1947.

By ANSHO MAS UCHIMA and MINORU SHINMOTO

Rear Admiral Kenneth P. Moritsugu, the appointed U.S. deputy surgeon general, was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. He attended Chaminade College for two years and received his Baccalaureate Degree with Honors in classical languages from the University of Hawaii in 1967.

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s new high school history textbooks modified and played down descriptions of the Japanese army’s role in mass suicides by civilians during the Battle of Okinawa, in line with instructions from education ministry screeners, according to results of the textbook screening process released March 30.

NEW YORK (Kyodo) — The Canadian House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights has approved a motion demanding that Japanese parliament offer apology to the women forced to be sex slaves for Japanese solders during World War II.

By Crystal Wong
Kyodo News

NEW YORK — The recent launch of the 2007 Nissan Altima Hybrid, the company’s first gasoline-electric vehicle in the United States, is just one example of the company’s Green Program 2010 — a set of targets to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions, and recycle resources over the next three years.

By AKIKO MINAGA
Nichi Bei Times Contributor

“I just want to take a big bite out of that chunk, right there.” An on looking bystander sighed, pointing at a 30-pound slab of fresh tuna.

By EMILY MOTO MURASE, Ph.D.

Love. Hate. Life. Death. War. Together they reside uncomfortably in a Nikkei-run boarding house in the heart of Japanese Town just after World War II in prolific Sansei playwright Philip Kan Gotanda’s landmark new play “After the War.”