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Bradford Pearson

2 Mar, 6 tweets, 2 min read

Six days after this Dr. Seuss cartoon ran, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the forced removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Geisel never apologized, only saying decades later that it and other racist cartoons were "embarrassingly badly drawn."

I'm not getting into the broader DR. SEUSS...CANCELED?! debate, but as someone who spent years researching this country's decades of anti-Japanese propaganda, I will say that I struggle with his role in educating young children. I don't buy his books for our kids.

@apjjf

For more insight into this part of Dr. Seuss' career, I recommend this @apjjf article: apjjf.org/2017/16/Minear…

I should add that I wrote about this exact type of racist propaganda and its effects on 120,000 Japanese Americans in my new book, THE EAGLES OF HEART MOUNTAIN, which came out just a few weeks ago: simonandschuster.com/books/The-Eagl…

A lot of the responses in this thread are conflating "Axis enemy Japan" and "Japanese Americans" which is...exactly how we ended up forcing 120,000 people into camps!

Muting this because it's gone in the exact direction I should've expected it to go, but if anyone is interested in reading more about anti-Japanese bigotry in the U.S. before and during WWII email me and I'll send along some recommendations.

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More from @BradfordPearson

Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

28 Oct 20

A short story, set in Philadelphia.

I've watched this conversation grow over the past month or so and it's been a real rollercoaster.

OK while I have you there's a great book coming out in January and guess what...I wrote it. Maybe you'd like to buy it? simonandschuster.com/books/The-Eagl…

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Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

27 Oct 20

If you don’t know what you’re talking about please, please shut up for the next seven days.

Good advice generally, but especially relevant when I see like 10 tweets a day with objectively harmful voting advice.

This morning Marc Vetri told his 30,000 followers to rip up their mail-in ballots and vote in person and I wanted to pull all my hair out.

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Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

7 Oct 20

In 1942, as the U.S. government was rounding up 120,000 Japanese Americans, a question arose: what about orphans? The response: "...if they have one drop of Japanese blood in them they must all go to camp."

That's what I think of when I read this story.

nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/…

@DenshoProject

More than 100 kids were imprisoned at Children's Village, in the Manzanar concentration camp. If you're interested in that story, here's some more info from the awesome folks at @DenshoProject: encyclopedia.densho.org/Manzanar%20Chi…

Tens of thousands of kids spent up to four years in the camps, and thousands of others were born in them, their birth certificates bearing the names of hastily constructed towns surrounded by barbed wire.

Read 4 tweets

Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

12 Sep 19

Did not expect to be emotionally gutted by a utility pole this morning

“I hope you made it home. I hope I do too.” goddamn

If anyone in Philly would like to pay their respects, The Corner Pole resides at 3rd and Federal, in the southeast corner of Jefferson Square

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Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

19 Mar 19

I graduated from Saint Joe's in 2006, so Phil Martelli has been an extended part of my life for 15+ years. I have one story I’d like to share about him.

In December 2002, the end of my freshman fall semester, Saint Joe’s was supposed to play Boston University. Problem was there was a huge snowstorm in Philly that day: roads closed, schools closed, everything closed.

That of course means one thing when you’re 18: you get absolutely blitzed on Captain Morgan’s and go sledding on cafeteria trays.

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Bradford Pearson

@BradfordPearson

12 Mar 19

This is the most bizarre technique for blowing out birthday candles that I’ve ever witnessed. Mitt Romney is a deeply weird dude.

In a movie this is how you’d learn that the person you thought was your friend was actually an alien who’d invaded your friend’s body.

The one thing the internet doesn’t get enough credit for us giving us immediate access to the unsettling mannerisms of the rich and famous. We used to have to wait years until, like, Robert Cato wrote about LBJ’s fingernail-trimming techniques or whatever.

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