Government must pay Pilipino veterans for service

  Jonah Lalas Lalas is a fourth-year
international development studies and political science student who
challenges you to question your beliefs and assumptions. Email him
at [email protected].
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Sixty years ago on July 26, 1941, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt issued an executive order that called on all able-bodied
Pilipinos in the Philippines, a colony of the United States, to
fight and serve under the U.S. flag. Consequently, over 400,000
Pilipino soldiers fought alongside American soldiers in the
Philippines for the years that followed Japanese occupation until
the war ended in 1945.

Yet, despite their courageous military service, Pilipino
veterans were given nothing but the Rescission Act of 1946. It held
that the services of the Pilipinos who served under the U.S.
military “shall not be deemed active service for purposes of
any law of the U.S. conferring rights, privileges, or
benefits” except for those who were killed, maimed or
separated from service due to physical disability.

This obviously leaves out a large number of Pilipino veterans
who now suffer from the illnesses and poor heath conditions that
come with old age. Yet unlike other U.S. veterans and those from 63
other allied nations, they were denied pensions and proper health
care.

In fact, many of the Pilipino veterans did not learn about the
discrimination committed against them until they applied for
veterans’ benefits in the 1980s and were denied. Since then,
the Pilipino veterans have participated in mass protests, lobbied
congressmen and have even chained themselves to the White House
gates in the hopes of achieving the benefits other veterans
receive.

Oppression is oppression, and regardless of what form it comes
in, it has to be eliminated.

Why is this issue important to us?

While many second-generation Pilipinos feel a more direct
connection to this issue ““ as many of these veterans may just
as easily be our grandparents ““ it’s important for all
people, no matter what race, to get involved. Racism and oppression
are the key themes that surround this issue.

Last Thursday, about 100 people, including over 50 students from
UCLA, participated in a rally in downtown Los Angeles at the
Immigration and Naturalization Service Federal Building in support
of the World War II Pilipino veterans.

The demonstration went hand in hand with actions in Washington,
D.C., where other activists are working to lobby congressmen and
senators to support two bills (H.R. 491 and S.B. 1042) that would
finally give full recognition to WWII Pilipino veterans in the
United States. These bills would help take steps toward providing
them with the benefits that other U.S. WWII veterans received 55
years ago.

Still, the Pilipino veterans’ movement is about more than
compensation and health care coverage ““ it’s about
gaining recognition, respect and equity for a grave injustice
committed against them.

Washington, D.C. will be developing a memorial dedicated to
World War II veterans, but will they recognize the active service
of the Pilipino veterans? Unless we fight back and make those
demands, it is likely that the 55,000 Pilipino veterans (4,000 of
them in Los Angeles county) will die unrecognized. It’s up to
us, the younger generation, to take action and carry on the
fight.

I’ve heard the comment that this issue is a
“Pilipino issue,” a battle best left to be fought only
by Pilipinos. This reasoning is completely false. What lies at the
center of this issue is discrimination, and as long as this act of
racism remains out of the realm of public discussion and
unaddressed by the legislators, then similar acts of social
injustice against others will occur.

The struggle of these veterans is no different than the movement
toward reparations for Japanese Americans for the years of
suffering they experienced in U.S. internment camps during World
War II.

It is no different from the movement to provide compensation to
the families of the millions of Jewish victims who died in the
Holocaust.

It is no different from the movement to force the Japanese
government to acknowledge and provide compensation to the Asian
“Comfort Women,” who underwent years of physical and
psychological damage as sex slaves to the Japanese army during the
Second World War.

It is no different from the move toward granting full benefits
to the Latino veterans who fought for the United States, but were
declared ineligible of the benefits in the G.I. Bill after World
War II.

And it is no different from the African Americans’
movement to receive reparations for over 200 years of
enslavement.

All of these issues concern undoing past wrongs brought on by
powerful governments against people on the basis of their group
identity. They concern times in history when certain people were
not recognized as humans, but as inferior beings, on the basis of
race, sex, class, etc.

Some people may argue that it is wrong to compare slavery, the
Holocaust and rape to the veterans issue, and that relatively
speaking, being denied benefits is not “as bad” as
genocide.

But oppression is oppression, and regardless of what form it
comes in, it has to be eliminated. One cause for social justice is
worth just as much as any other. We must hold our government
accountable for all wrongdoings.

Clearly, the veterans issue is not just a “Pilipino
issue,” but one that concerns everyone interested in equality
and social justice. Indeed, there is no such thing as a
“Latino issue,” an “African American issue”
or a “women’s issue”; the struggles of any group
which has been disadvantaged are linked.

The diversity of students who protested at the INS building to
show support for the veterans is inspiring, but we should be able
to see more of these broad coalitions in the future.

Only then can we become more effective in bringing justice not
only to the Pilipino veterans, but to all people who’ve been
oppressed and denied recognition, respect and dignity because of
their group identity.