Why DEI is Important to Me

My Japanese immigrant parents moved to Skokie, IL in 1977 when I was four years old. In March of that year, a nazi group (National Socialist Party of America) announced that they planned to march through Skokie. They chose Skokie because more Holocaust survivors lived there at that time than anywhere else outside of Israel. This planned march became national news, and the ACLU controversially chose to represent the Nazis’ right to march, taking the stance that it was their first amendment right. Ultimately, the march was moved to Chicago, where the small group of marchers was outnumbered by counter-protesters by orders of magnitude and lasted less than ten minutes. As a child, I knew nothing about this. Nonetheless, this march-in-Skokie-that-never-was ended up having a huge impact on my life.

The silver lining of the threat of this march was that the Holocaust survivors who lived in Skokie began to tell their stories. Until then, they had not wanted to speak of their horror; they wanted to live their lives and raise their families in peace—and who could blame them? But this incident made them aware of the importance of truth-telling. This is how I came to have an incredible childhood, where year after year, I heard first-hand accounts of these survivors, who took the time to come to our schools, who did not shy away from sharing the atrocities that they survived with us even though we were children, even if we were as young as five. And even when we were very young, we understood the lesson, for the elders were very clear: respect and honor everyone, dehumanize nobody, do not let others demonize anyone else—for the consequences are great if you do.

Today, I give a lot of credit to the institutions that allowed these storytellers to come speak to us children. Back then, nobody called it DEI. It wasn’t considered progressive. But it also wasn’t controversial to say that everybody’s voice was important, that it was okay to say scary things that were true. I do not know who I would be today had I not had this enchanted childhood. I know who I am because of it. That is why I am committed to creating space for the story of others. For me, the importance of valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion is not a political platform nor a single issue. It is the core belief that was instilled in me from when I was a child. It is the deep knowledge of what is at stake if we do not advocate for it relentlessly.  It is respecting the truth of what my elders taught me out of the generosity of their hearts and the fulfillment of my promise to continue their work of creating a more just world.