One of the best things about having a column is the give and
take with readers from all walks of life. Most of the time that
give and take is made up of positive feedback or story ideas for
the column, but it has recently come to my attention that something
I wrote in the column on 3/12 caused distress to a speaker by the
name of Janneke Brown at the Presbyterian Annual Renewal Dinner and
evening of song, humor and testimony.
One of the best things about having a column is the give and take with readers from all walks of life. Most of the time that give and take is made up of positive feedback or story ideas for the column, but it has recently come to my attention that something I wrote in the column on 3/12 caused distress to a speaker by the name of Janneke Brown at the Presbyterian Annual Renewal Dinner and evening of song, humor and testimony. While I try to be sensitive about quoting others, sometimes ideas can be summarized or taken out of context and interpreted in ways not intended. What we say tends to grow legs of its own. I did not seek permission to talk about what Ms. Brown had said because it was my understanding that I was listening to a public speaker in a public place giving a courageous accounting of the story of her life.

After hearing it, I tried to convey to others a brief version of her powerful topic in the hope that it might inspire and touch other peoples‚ lives for the better. But since she was speaking at what she considered an intensely personal event in the sanctuary of her own church, she felt it was a reasonable expectation that no details of a speaker’s talk would be shared.

It is important to note that while Ms. Brown shared the information that she was treated for alcoholism at one time in her life, that recovery from alcoholism bears only a positive effect on her life now: she has been sober since the age of 15. Although Ms. Brown considers herself a recovering alcoholic, she wants to stress that her sobriety is not an ongoing struggle, but rather a process of one-day-at-a-time spiritual and lifelong growth.

For those who do suffer from alcohol dependency issues, there is plenty of help available and no need to suffer in silence. Chemical Dependency is considered a three-fold disease: physical, emotional and spiritual. Effective help for individuals and families is available. To find out more, contact Alcoholics Anonymous of Santa Clara County at 74-8511 or Community Solutions in Gilroy at 6980 Chestnut St. at 842-7138.

In these ultra-PC times, it is easy to become afraid to be honest with each other, but I admire the way Ms. Brown talked to me about how she felt. I am happy to get to know this interesting member of our community a little better, and surprised to find out that we have something unexpected in common, even though our backgrounds are so different.

It turns out that both of us have family members who were imprisoned during WWII. Here in America, Japanese Americans were confined to internment camps. Ms. Brown tells me that she is on her way to visit her Aunt Mechtelien (her father’s youngest sister), who is visiting Houston from the Netherlands, and whom she has not seen for 15 years. Her Aunt Mechtelien is a survivor of the Japanese concentration camps of WWII. The Dutch people, in what was then the Dutch East Indies, were Dutch citizens, living in Indonesia. Some 80,000 Dutch civilians were interned by the Japanese. When internment started, there were a lot of small camps, but in the course of time the Japanese started to concentrate the internees. As a result of this concentration, a camp could grow from 2,500 in 1942 to 10,000 in 1945.

Conditions included forced labor, cruelty, and starvation. The starvation could be considered as bad or worse as what was experienced by American POW’s captured in the Phillipines and elsewhere in WWII. The internees lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world, in conditions that grew worse every day. Some 16,800 internees did not come out alive.

The trauma of the experience kept many Dutch from talking about what they been through; as a nation, it took one to two generations to start coming to terms with the camp survivor experiences. No one in my family talks about their Japanese/American internment camp experience. But you can see the effects. We must make sure that this kind of violation of civil rights is never repeated.

Ms. Brown’s father recently received reparation money from the Dutch government offered to all survivors–as good will. In spite of all that had occurred during the war, a good example of forgiveness can be found in the fact that Ms. Brown’s parents enjoyed both Japanese and German friends after the war.

When my father-in-law received his reparation money from the U.S. Government, he went out and bought the biggest American-made car he could afford. All his life he has been determined to demonstrate for everyone to see just how American he can truly be.

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