Articles Feature

An ‘Internment’ They Didn’t Tell Us About

by richard0709

U.S. Coerced Latin Nations to Turn Over Own Citizens
Trump AID Cuts to Hit Cuba’s Independent Media
Record Number of Journalists Killed Worldwide

Short Takes: “CBS Evening News”; “Sugarcane’s” Oscar nomination; Carlos Watson; Chauncy Glover; Adrian Ma; Black Sportswriters Hall of Fame; Sports Journalism Institute; reframing narrative on gun violence; Alice Bell; Oinika Obiekwe; High Country News; Damali Keith; Romina Ruiz-Goiriena; Harris Faulkner; Kadir Nelson and The New Yorker; George Polk Awards; India’s action against media outlets.

In Part 1:

Joy Reid’s MSNBC Show Canceled:
Sources Report ‘Far-Reaching Overhaul’
Resistance to Trump Is Gaining Steam:
Reactions to Anti-DEI Moves Are Split by Party
Miss. Judge Enrages Believers in 1st Amendment

Ford, Knight Foundations Step Up for Diversity
Public Radio, TV Stations Alter DEI Statements
3 Former Chairs Sound Alarm on Trump’s FCC Chief
AP Creates Unit on Local Investigative Reporting
. . . At Least 29 Police Recruits Died During Training
Education Dept. Warns on Teaching About Race
. . . ‘Eyes on the Prize’ Update Debuts Tuesday

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Japanese American groups in the San Francisco Bay area held a news conference Feb. 14 to discuss the “2025 Day of Remembrance,” one of several on the West Coast that took place last weekend. This was held at the San Francisco’s National Japanese American Historical Society’s Peace Gallery. Grace Shimizu. director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project and the Campaign for Justice: Redress NOW for Japanese Latin Americans, begins speaking at about 24:02. (Credit: YouTube)

U.S. Coerced Latin Nations to Turn Over Own Citizens

“Did you know?” asks the Campaign for Justice, a California-based group seeking justice for Latin Americans of Japanese ancestry whose countries were pressured by the United States into giving them up to Uncle Sam.

They were taken to what were, during World War II, called “internment camps.”

Say what? No, most of us didn’t know. The news media, by and large, hasn’t told us.

“During WWII, the U.S. government went outside its borders and violated the rights of over 2,200 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry in 13 Latin American countries in the name of ‘national security,’ the group says on its website. “These ‘potentially dangerous enemy aliens’ were imprisoned in concentration camps in the U.S. for use as hostages in exchange for U.S. citizens held in Far East war zones. Over 80 years later, the U.S. government has yet to acknowledge and properly redress these crimes against humanity.”

Should we know? Yes, say these descendants of those taken to the camps. “What we’re experiencing now is very similar,” according to Mike Isni, who opened a Bay Area news conference Feb. 15 announcing one of the “Days of Remembrance” held annually by Japanese Americans, in their own version of “never forget.”

The Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of immigrants, they say, is merely a 2025 version of what many of their parents and other relatives endured.

“We believe it was wrong for the U.S. government to abduct civilians of Japanese ancestry from their homes in Latin America, forcibly deport them to the United States, and imprison them in Department of Justice internment camps for the purpose of hostage exchange,” the group says. “The U.S. government’s human rights violations were done with such secrecy, that few people know about this dark chapter of WWII history. Most people are appalled when first learning of these events and want to know what they can do to help right these wrongs.”

World War II was recent enough for those personally affected by the internment to be alive. “My father and other relatives were among the over 2,200 men, women and children kidnapped from 13 Latin American countries,” Grace Shimizu (pictured) said at the San Francisco news conference.

“My father was a Japanese immigrant resident who was seized from his home in Peru and interned in a Department of Justice camp in Texas at Crystal City under the U.S.-Latin American extraordinary rendition and hostage exchange programs during World War II. My father’s first wife, his brother and sister-in-law and their children were seized from their home and transported over international borders — classified as illegal aliens upon entry into the U.S. and interned at the Department of Justice multinational family concentration camp at Crystal City without charge and for indefinite duration.

“My father’s first wife died in the camp due to the trauma of this ordeal and lack of adequate medical care. His younger cousin was interned in Santa Fe, N.M., camp and was used in the second hostage exchange. At war’s end, my uncle and his family were denied the right to return to Peru and were deported to war-devastated Japan under U.S. military occupation. They managed to reunite with my grandmother and other family members in Hiroshima, surviving in the aftermath of the atomic bomb.

“My father was released on parole from [the] camp under the sponsorship of Japanese American relatives living in Northern California. His hope was to reunite with family members remaining but was never able to do so. He eventually remarried and started a family with my mother in Berkeley, Calif. . . .

“I serve as the director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project and the Campaign for Justice: Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans. In addition to our work to document and preserve the wartime history of our families and to educate the public, we have also been waging a struggle for justice for over three-quarters of a century beginning in the concentration camps to uphold the Geneva conventions and its protections of civilians during wartime.

“We pursued five lawsuits and two pieces of failed legislation, but the U.S. government has persistently denied proper redress for the human rights violations perpetrated against our families. So we took our case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which serves as a . . . venue of last resort for redress of human rights violations in the Americas.

“In 2020, this commission published its groundbreaking decision that the US government owes meaningful material and moral redress to the Japanese Latin Americans for longstanding violations of human rights.

“This year, 2025, marks the sixth year that the U.S. government has refused to comply with international law. It continues to act with impunity with its failure to [provide proper reparation.] Our struggle for historical truth and justice continues, and now today we see that Trump is also making the assertions to make the U.S. great again by repeating its sordid mistakes. He’s threatening to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the mass detention and expulsion of migrants and other communities’ folks here already. . . .”

“Cuban Frank Dario Jarrosay Manfuga is now a prisoner of war in Ukraine, captured while fighting for the Russian army,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. “He claims he was deceived into going to Russia with the promise of a construction job. His story is part of a larger pattern of how Russia might recruit foreigners, targeting Cubans among others with promises of high salaries. There are an estimated 5,000 Cuban mercenaries among the foreign fighters in Ukraine, many drawn by economic hardship. The country’s long-standing ties with Russia also play a role. While Havana claims it doesn’t support recruitment of foreign mercenaries, the Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has publicly backed Russia’s actions.” (Credit: YouTube)

Trump AID Cuts to Hit Cuba’s Independent Media

U.S.-funded media outlets reporting on Cuba are looking for alternative sources of funding after Donald Trump’s government announced plans to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, Dave Sherwood reported this month for Reuters. That led the Cuban government to react with glee and independent journalists to warn that without them, “the false and lying narrative of the regime would be imposed, and the reality of what is happening in Cuba would not be heard.”

Those words come Friday from René Gómez Manzano, writing in CubaNet, one of the independent organs published partially with U.S. taxpayer money.

In its monthly report, the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP) said Monday, “Journalists continue to be the target of State Security harassment.

“The most representative case in January was that of reporter Niober García Fournier, who was first accused of ‘usurpation of legal capacity,’ a strategy by the regime to silence those who question state power.

“He was subsequently denied a passport on alleged ‘national security’ grounds. The journalist has been under regulation since 2015, a term the dictatorship uses to prohibit certain citizens from leaving the country.” In all, “Of the total number of violations, 47 are related to freedom of expression and 11 to freedom of the press.”

Cuba: violations of freedom of expression and the press in January 2025. (Credit: The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press.)

From Spain, Prisoners Defenders reported Feb. 13 that, “As of January 31, 2025, the list of political prisoners in Cuba contains a total of 1,150 political and conscientious prisoners who are being sentenced to court or subjected to restraining orders by prosecutors without any judicial oversight, due process or effective defense, in flagrant violation of international law. A comprehensive legal study has been conducted on these political prisoners, which certifies the denial of their penal benefits.

“5 new political prisoners have been added to the list in January and there have been 16 deductions. 11 of these are the result of the full completion of the sentence, 2 are due to ‘acquittals’ after ten and two months of having been deprived of liberty “precautionarily”, and 3 are cases settled prior to the criminal proceedings.”

The non-government publications are also reporting that “Blackouts give no respite in Cuba: Nine thermoelectric units are out of service” (CiberCuba) and that the Cuban regime’s January promise of the release of 553 people deprived of liberty did not come to pass, partly due to the change of U.S. administrations.

“Only 209 political prisoners were released by the Cuban regime, less than half of the announced figure of 553, according to the NGO Prisoners Defenders (PD). Of the total number of those released, 91% had already been eligible for open prison terms, conditional release or immediate release for more than a year,” Camila Acosta reported Thursday for CubaNet. No journalists were identified among those released.

There was also news that “Cuba lost more than 300,000 inhabitants in 2024 and recorded the lowest number of births in recent decades” and that “Cuban tourism industry plummets in the first month of 2025,” as Emilio Morales reported for Diario De Cuba.

Amid that gloomy news, the “PBS NewsHour” aired two upbeat pieces from Havana about Cuban musicians, and the Morgan State University School of Global Journalism and Communication sent a representative to Havana, though apparently not to discuss journalism or press issues.

Michael Cottman, assistant to Dean Jackie Jones and lecturer in political reporting at the historically Black institution, wrote on Facebook, “We enjoyed five days of engaging, intellectual conversations: We expanded our Memorandum of Understanding with The University of Havana, met with the Dean and Faculty, planned student-operated podcasts about family and culture and we discussed a two-week Cuban faculty exchange program during Homecoming Week at Morgan State University.

“We also attended the 33rd Annual Havana International Book Fair (for the second year in a row) where South Africa was the ‘guest country of honor’ for this year’s Book Fair. We had wonderful conversations with some of South Africa’s emerging Black authors and musicians, discussed potential literary partnerships, and met with Peace Mabe, Deputy Minister for Arts, Sports and Culture, and a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa, who kindly extended an invitation to SGJC to visit South Africa. . . .”

As for independent journalism, Sherwood continued Feb. 10 for Reuters, “The State Department has issued suspension of work directives around the world — now under judicial review — that have effectively frozen most of the foreign aid, including funding from media covering Cuba but operate independently of the Cuban government.

“Miami-based CubaNet, which received $500,000 dedicated from USAID in 2024, last week published an editorial on its website requesting donations from readers.

” ‘We face an unexpected challenge: the suspension of key funding that supported part of our work,’ the editorial said. ‘If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask for your support’.”

“Diario de Cuba, based in Madrid, launched a similar request on Friday.”

[ “For 15 years we have been telling you what the Cuban regime does not want you to know. Today we ask you to support us with a donation. This way you contribute to freedom of information in Cuba,” it told readers.]

“The decision to cut funding appears to conflict with a broader U.S. government policy of financing opposition and human rights groups in Cuba, as well as ‘independent’ media.

“USAID’s funding for the Cuban-related media amounted to $2.3 million in 2024, according to agency budget reports, most of them for programs titled ‘Independent Media and Free Information.”

“The programs have irritated the Cuban government, which has long rebuked the United States and its aid agency for subsidizing digital media that it considers representatives of U.S. foreign policy.’ “

ln fact, Diario De Cuba reported, “The president of Casa de las Américas, Abel Prieto, referred to independent media as ‘monsters’. Meanwhile, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, wrote in his X profile: ‘What is independent about a journalist, an activist or an opponent who lives off the money paid by the US Government through USAID and now feels suffocated when the tap is turned off? It was always known that they have been hired lackeys, absolutely dependent on the master. “

“As Cuba stands to become even more isolated, many Cubans continue to leave and those who stay remain cut off from family in the United States,” Amna Nawaz told viewers Feb. 6 on the “PBS NewsHour. “Carlos Varela, a singer known as ‘The Poet of Havana,’ has been addressing the pain politics causes. Jeffrey Brown reports from Havana for our series, ‘Art in Action,’ exploring the intersection of art and democracy and our arts and culture series, CANVAS.” (Credit: YouTube)

Journal-isms’ Havana correspondent Julio Antonio Rojas spoke to some independent journalists on the island.

Mario Luis Reyes of the magazine El Estornudo said, “We are very isolated, in that we have reached the internet, one of the ways to connect with the rest of the world, very late compared to countries of another region. That isolation has generated a double barrier for us: inwards, of being encapsulated and disconnected, and then also outwards, [it] has created an idea of Cuba that is a fiction, and that has generated a [false] idea of how the Cubans see the region and the region sees Cuba.”

Roberto Hechavarría, director of CubaNet, said that “Cuba has for decades been a reference on the continent for both good and bad. Unfortunately, many of the repressive practices that have been deployed on the island are beginning to be seen in dictatorships of the continent that repress freedom of expression and information.”

Rojas added, “Dictatorships have criminalized freedom of the press, to the extent that journalists do not identify themselves as such and must omit the signatures of their notes to avoid being arrested.

“In Cuba there are dozens of journalists imprisoned, accused of ‘terrorism’ or ‘incitement to hatred’ for reporting on social protests and giving their opinion on their social networks. Meanwhile, the State exercises different forms of direct and indirect censorship, including blocking the internet to prevent access to independent media. Despite these extreme restrictions, the independent press survives through an ecosystem that is supported by journalism in exile.”

(Credit: YouTube)

Record Number of Journalists Killed Worldwide

“A record number of journalists were killed worldwide in 2024, figures published today by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) show,” the press-freedom organization reported Feb. 12. Israel is responsible for nearly 70 percent of that total.

“At least 124 journalists across 18 countries were killed last year, making it the deadliest year for reporters and media workers since CPJ started keeping records more than three decades ago, reflecting surging levels of international conflict, political unrest and criminality worldwide.

“The global upswing in killings (a 22 percent increase from 2023) was largely driven by the Israel-Gaza war, which accounted for 85 journalist deaths, all at the hands of the Israeli military. Most of those killed, 82, were Palestinians. Sudan and Pakistan had the second-highest number of journalists and media workers killed in 2024, with six each. In Sudan, a devastating civil war has left thousands dead and millions displaced. While Pakistan had recorded no journalist fatalities since 2021, roiling political unrest in the country spurred a spike in killings.

“ ‘Today is the most dangerous time to be a journalist in CPJ’s history,’” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. ‘The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger. Our figures show journalists under attack worldwide.’

“She added: ‘The rise in journalist killings is part of a broader trend of muzzling the media globally. This is an issue that should worry us all—because censorship prevents us from addressing corruption and criminality, and from holding the powerful to account.’ . . . ”

Short Takes

With co-anchors Maurice DuBois, left, and John Dickerson, “The network plans to rebuild its long-running ‘CBS Evening News,’ retooling anchors, format and segments in a bid to make the half-hour once led by Walter Cronkite more valuable for modern news viewers who don’t recognize the show as the cultural touchstone it was in the 1960s and 70s,” Brian Steinberg wrote last August for Variety. (Credit: Screenshot)

  • “When CBS News unveiled its revamped ‘Evening News’ format in late January, it was marketed as a step into the future — a return to New York with a modern, sleeker feel that would showcase the full newsgathering might of the Tiffany Network,” Oliver Darcy wrote Thursday for his Status newsletter. “Instead, the overhaul has triggered a ratings free-fall, raising urgent questions about how the embattled Wendy McMahon-led network can contain the carnage, along with inviting deeper scrutiny over why it made such a gamble at a precarious time. . . . Not only is the story selection odd, but the co-anchor dynamic feels awkward and unnatural. Rather than playing off each other smoothly, [John] Dickerson and [Maurice] DuBois at times seem out of sync, with clunky transitions and an energy that feels more like two separate broadcasts awkwardly stitched together. There’s no real chemistry or natural rhythm to the conversation, making the presentation feel disjointed. . . .”

  • The discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school in Canada in 2021 was just the catalyst for “Sugarcane,” which has now been screened at the White House, for Canadian Parliament and for over a dozen indigenous communities in North America. It  marks the first time that an Indigenous North American filmmaker has received an Oscar nomination, Lindsey Bahr reported Feb. 14 for the Associated Press. “Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, the filmmakers behind the Oscar-nominated documentary, spent years investigating the truth behind just one of the institutions. ‘Sugarcane,’ now streaming on Hulu, paints a horrifying picture of the systemic abuses inflicted by the state-funded school and exposes for the first time a pattern of infanticide and babies born to Indigenous girls and fathered by priests.” The movie was also previewed at last year’s convention of the Indigenous Journalists Association.

    • In a piece Thursday by Mallory Yu of NPR, Adrian Ma remembers his girlfriend, civil rights lawyer Kiah Duggins, who was a passenger on the American Airlines flight that collided with a military helicopter and crashed Jan 29 into the Potomac River. Ma covers the economy, work and business for “The Indicator from Planet Money,” NPR’s daily economics podcast. (Credit: Adrian Ma)

    • The Sports Journalism Institute has chosen 16 students for its 33rd class, the institute announced Tuesday. They “will convene for a boot camp at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State from June 7-11. Upon their graduation from boot camp, this class will increase our alums to more than 400. More than half of SJI alums have gone on to work professionally in sports media or communications.”

    • Alice Bell, a former producer at New York’s WNBC-TV and former wife of “Today” star Al Roker, has died, her family announced Monday, Joseph Wilkinson reported for the Daily News in New York. The cause of death was not revealed. Bell and Roker were married from 1984 to 1994. During the early 1980s, they both worked at WNBC, where Bell produced the network’s “Live at Five” newscast. Roker was the weatherman at the station.
    • . “A former WPIX-TV news anchor sued the New York TV station and its parent company Nexstar Media Group Inc. on Wednesday, claiming she was pushed out for speaking up about racist and sexist treatment on the job,” Mike Vilensky reported Jan. 29 for Bloomberg News. Nigerian-born “Oinika Obiekwe (pictured), a Black woman, filed a complaint alleging retaliation in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Obiekwe, a former entertainment journalist for the local New York news channel PIX11, said her contract wasn’t renewed after more than two decades at the station after she complained that White male peers had less work, better pay, and more support.  …  “

    • “High Country News has told the environmental and ecological stories of the Western United States for more than 50 years,” Bob Miller wrote Tuesday for Editor & Publisher. “In so doing, the publication has reached an audience that wants to protect the earth and landscape in which they live. . . .” Publisher Greg Hanscom said, “In the last seven years, we have really embraced Indigenous Affairs reporting. We were among the first non-native publications in the country to create a desk with a team of journalists specifically dedicated to issues of concern to Native communities. And it is led and largely staffed by native journalists, so they know about what they speak. They have broken a lot of important ground. … They’ve changed how we do our work across the board.”

    • In Houston, “Damali Keith (pictured), who has worked as an anchor and reporter for Fox 26 for two-and-a-half decades, is retiring from the TV station and taking a job at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Peter Warren reported Feb. 14 for the Houston Chronicle. “Keith has worked for Fox 26 for about 25 years and in television news for 30 years. ‘I think the biggest thing that has set me apart in my storytelling is, at the end of my news report I don’t only want you to know the story,’ Keith said in the announcement of her departure. ‘I want you to feel it. Now I’ll continue that but with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, highlighting the important work being done there, giving justice and a voice to Houstonians affected by crime. ‘ “

    • Romina Ruiz-Goiriena (pictured) has been named USA Today’s “first-ever executive editor for investigations and storytelling. Under this newly created role, she helps shape some of the biggest swings and spearhead strategic initiatives for the wider newsroom,” the publication said. “Romina was most recently Managing Editor of Politics, White House and Storytelling in an election year that included the historic announcement by President Joe Biden to end his reelection bid and two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump. Previously, she was the first Latina in the role of White House Editor in USA TODAY’s history.”

    • “A Day at the Beach” by Kadir Nelson was among the “10 wry, controversial, viral covers from the New Yorker’s 100 years” selected by Michael Cavna, writing Friday for The Washington Post. Françoise Mouly, the art editor for roughly a third of the magazine’s existence, said, “When Kadir Nelson created his summer 2016 cover, it resonated immediately, going viral. … Though‬ seemingly photographic at first glance, Nelson’s oil-on-canvas painting is, like all our covers, a‬ carefully constructed idea. Against a beach backdrop with distant umbrellas and‬ sunbathers, he emphasizes the sky — reflected in sunglasses — to give this summer‬ moment a timeless quality. Every gesture tells the story: the father’s American‬ flag-inspired bathing suit and proud stance, his son wrapped affectionately around his‬ shoulders, his firm yet gentle hold on both children. While the kids look off-camera at‬‭ something amusing … the father turns to meet our gaze directly. Nelson, who‬ grew up on the Jersey Shore, used himself and his children as models, creating an‬‭ unequivocal portrait of paternal pride.”

    • Among the George Polk Award winners announced by Long Island University Monday were Declan Walsh and the staff of The New York Times “for War Reporting for a series of dispatches from Sudan, reported at great personal risk, demonstrating how starvation, indiscriminate destruction and inhuman atrocities were deployed as tools of a civil war.” The award for National Television Reporting went to Mike Hixenbaugh, Jon Schuppe, Liz Kreutz and the late Susan Carroll of NBC News and Noticias Telemundo “for ‘Dealing the Dead,’ revealing that a medical school in north Texas was dismembering the corpses of individuals who died alone.” For the “PBS News Hour, special correspondent Marcia Biggs, videographer Eric O’Connor and producer André Paultre won the Foreign Television Reporting award for their series “Haiti in Crisis,” which “depicted the complete breakdown of daily life in parts of Port Au Prince with chilling interviews of citizens who have come to describe and even participate in unspeakable barbarism at the hand of street gangs in matter-of-fact terms.”

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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