Unwritten Note - Jodi Hottel

[Larry Robinson]

Unwritten Note

The news is on everyone’s lips
like flies gathering on excrement:
President Roosevelt has ordered

our removal. Will we be 
taken from our homes like vermin?
I know it must be a misunderstanding,

gossip spread in these
harsh times. I choke 
on acrid laughter.

It is not possible.
After all, I served
my chosen country in the Army,

in the Great War. So I go to see
my longtime friend and sheriff
of Monterey County.

Is is no joke, Hideo. You’ll have to go.
He can’t look me in the eyes.
When he finds my body hung

in this rented room, with
my certificate of honorary citizenship
expressing honor and respect

for your loyal and splendid
service to the country,
he will understand why

I could not allow 
this noble country to tarnish
its honor, or mine.

	- Jodi Hottel


Today, February 19, is the 75th anniversary of the day that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of whom were citizens. 
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