Never Again, Now

It was hot and breezy in Dublin, barely a cloud in the sky, as several hundred people (and plenty of dogs) gathered at Don Biddle Park. You could’ve mistaken it for a family event with all the children running around, but it was about families: about mothers and fathers shipped off, kids born behind barbed wire, watched over by rifles and miles of desert and oppressive heat. 

Today it was a Japanese American rally, though, hanging tsurus in solidarity with immigrants targeted by the Trump regime. When speakers compared “Alligator Alcatraz” to Japanese American internment camps, the responding chants (“Shame! Shame! Shame!”) carried for blocks in every direction. Everyone who took the microphone spoke clearly and strongly, repeating “Never again is now.” Many had patches that told you where their families had been interned for the crime of being Japanese. Mugshots and pictures of people being dragged through camps were interspersed with CECOT detainees having their heads shaved. This time, the government didn’t need the pretext of war to treat them as less than human.

“Never again is now!” Members of the Koyasan Temple in Sacramento performed, first a beautifully heartbreaking song about the singer’s grandmother being detained, then a drum ensemble, exorcising demons and planting the seeds for a better world. 

“Never again is now!” A single counterprotestor in an NRA hat and camo shorts tried to disrupt, but the marshals did the right thing and blocked him off while not engaging. I told him to go fuck himself. I apologized to the marshals. 

My Judaism demanded I stand up. I did, and so did many others. Never again is now.—Mark Misoshnik

(Photos)