I love the smell of tack in the Morning

Time to saddle up my favorite pony. Dave Neiwert alerts us to the fact that Malkin is a dualie, citizen that is. Now this would be of little interest or concern if she had not decided to write a screed, celebrating the internment of Japanese Americans during world war two. I'll let Dave take it from here

Of course, she's quite right that the presumption that because she's Asian American she "ought to be" opposed to the Japanese American internment is nonsense. However, the fact that she is of Filipino descent in fact has a great deal to do with her book's thesis.

Malkin, you see, makes great hay of the fact of "dual citizenship" among the Nisei as a clear indicator of "torn loyalties" and a cause to suspect them of potential sabotage or espionage.

But Malkin, as it happens, is a dual citizen herself.

Under Filipino law, any child born to Filipino parents, whether living abroad or not, is reckoned a Filipino citizen. Malkin was born in Philadelphia in 1970 to Filipino-immigrant parents.

This Filipino government site explains the details of this:

Dual citizenship is the status of a person who is a citizen of two or more states. For example, a child born in the United States of parents who are Filipino citizens is both a Filipino (since his parents are Filipinos at the time of birth) and an American (since he was born in the United States).

The only means by which Malkin could have shed her dual-citizen status would have been by filing for the "express renunciation of citizenship." Perhaps Malkin has done so, but considering the lengths at which she has discussed the significance of the failure of the Nisei to renounce their Japanese citizenship -- and the fact that she has not been shy about dicussing her personal background in the context of the book's theses -- it seems she'd have told us about it by now if she had.

[.......]

A few words about the Issei: There is little question that indeed many Issei remained loyal to Japan and never had any intention, let alone hope, of ever becoming American. While a certain amount of native loyalty certainly was at play in this syndrome, almost just as certainly the major factor in the persistence of this attitude lay in the very fact that the American government discriminated against all Asian races in refusing them the right to naturalize.

It's a classic one-two setup: Refuse citizenship to an entire nation's immigrants, then suspect them of disloyalty for not becoming citizens. Its use was a commonplace, especially in the letters to the editor, in the spring of 1942; what's surprising is that Malkin manages to dust off this tactic's mouldering corpse and prop it up long enough to make an argument out of it.

It's also worth noting that Malkin utterly ignores the role of racism in creating this situation. The reality is that, for the 40 years preceding Pearl Harbor, white supremacist beliefs about the "undesirability" of allowing "Asian blood to mix" with that of whites dominated American immigration policy regarding Asians. A typical expression of the supposed unassimilability of Asians in America was the phrase, "Oil and water don't mix."

the republicans have been rolling in the racist hay since long before the civil rights movement, and Malkin is yet another to climb the ladder to that loft.

[..............Update.............]

The kids over at the Eschaton are discussing this and I wanted to share a couple of comments with you.

that means she can speak out of BOTH sides of her ass.

And, intriguingly, speaking out of one's ass is a cross-cultural phenomenon.
chica toxica

Does this mean that there are now twice as many countries who are ashamed every time she opens her cake hole?
loudGizmo

What? Little Lulu, who goes to great evidence-corrupting lengths to attack Japanese-Americans as traitors, using dual citizenship as Exhibit A in her house of lies, is herself a dual citizen?

Why am I not surprised at her utter hypocrisy?
Phoenix Woman