AN INDEPENDENT RESEARCH PROJECT BY DAYTON CHONTOS: THREE INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS AND A TWO-PART VIDEO SERIES ​

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I.     War and Prejudice: The Hidden Costs

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       A.  An Overview

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While trying to learn and understand the context and costs of war, there was a very prevalent theme in particular that I found relevant to me and my family, that theme being the role of prejudice and discrimination in creating, perpetuating, and justifying conflict at home and abroad. Both war and prejudice have touched my own family, as well as people and places I have come in contact with throughout my life. I plan to focus on both these subjects in college as part of my major. 

 

I therefore decided to independently research instances of the combination of these two things, because they touched on my own experience directly. These are the three personal accounts I focused on for my analysis: 

 

      (1) the experience of my Black grandfather in Vietnam and in America after returning from               the war:

 

      (2) the interned Japanese-American Hatano family and their flower farm, which is less than                a mile from where I live; 

 

      (3) the personal story of Holocaust survivor Celina Karp Biniaz, whom I went to hear speak                  at a synagogue in our neighborhood our first year living in California.

 

The ability of humans to engage in wars that kill huge numbers of people, as well as our ability to hate and blame different groups of people, are two of the most destructive things there are. I understand from personal experience why kids think playing at war is fun, and I know kids realize very early on that some people are different from them. 

 

But as we grow up, we learn that war is not only not fun, but enormously destructive. We also learn that different people are basically the same as us in the ways that truly matter. Yet both war and prejudice continue to happen all over the world. I know I cannot stop these two things, but I want to start working against them. I intend to learn as much as possible about these issues in college so that I can be a positive force and create change in the world.

 

The total effects of prior wars often feel distant to those living in relatively peaceful countries today, such as myself, but the history of war still remains very relevant to many people because of the deep personal losses they experienced and can never forget. I didn’t have to scour the internet or flip through the pages of a book to find sources and stories for this project; the accounts I used were right in front of me the whole time

 

                1. Papa’s Distinguished Service In Vietnam

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As a child, I sometimes found myself confused about the human cost of war when I talked to my late grandfather, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and paratrooper.  Papa, as we called him, stood 6 feet 2 inches tall, with a strong, athletic frame even in his late sixties and early seventies. Whenever I picture him, I remember how he always proudly wore his Vietnam veteran’s hat, with the words “Bronze Star” printed in bold on the front. I have seen pictures of him from those times, when he served in the 101st Airborne Division as a “Screaming Eagle.” He was 20 and dating my Grandma when he wrote her letters with pictures of himself holding a parachute, swimming in the South China Sea, and standing outside a plane.  

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But I never really heard much about his experiences directly from him. Even though he seemed to take great pride in his service, Papa never seemed approachable or comfortable answering questions on Vietnam. I was curious about what made him decide to volunteer to serve as a paratrooper at the height of the conflict. I was confused about why he would do that while enduring racism and segregation at home. 

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Papa was very affectionate, social, and outgoing, but when it came to his experiences in the war, it was clear even to my younger self that he carried an immense burden from his service in Vietnam. 

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The research I have done through this independent project is a tribute to Papa. It revealed to me the true extent of the consequences this war had on service members, both physical and mental. The link between Agent Orange and various types of cancers and even birth defects made the lasting human cost of this war very clear. Although I had some idea of the trauma combat soldiers experienced, this project has given me a greater understanding of why Papa never shared much at all, including anything about the heroics that earned him his Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal.

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My grandfather died of bladder cancer in 2017, only a year after he was diagnosed. Our family was devastated when he died in hospice, with Grandma and my mom by his side when he passed. It felt so sudden. I never really had a chance to get to know more about his personal experiences when he was a young man who was not much older than I am now. My mom and grandmother told me tidbits of information about his service, but he hadn’t told them much either. 

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Papa was with Grandma for 55 years and married to her for 48 years, but he never shared any information with her, even when he was having serious episodes of PTSD. She and my mom knew he struggled with trauma post-war, but he never told them specifically what it was about his actual service that gave him nightmares, caused him to wake up in a panic in the middle of the night, or made him imagine he was jumping out of an airplane when he was in his bedroom.  

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I found it important to acquire this information to preserve his legacy. I’ve always partly remembered and deeply admired Papa for his courage and his pride in his status as a Vietnam veteran, so I wanted to investigate this further. It is the obligation of his living family, including me, to obtain and interpret as much of his unknown information as possible to better our understanding of him as a family and to pay proper respect. 

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For all these reasons, this project was emotional and personal. It was an important beginning to understanding more about Papa’s service and how much it must have cost him. To me, he represents American history, and his personal sacrifices deserve to be remembered.

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​               2.  The Local Impact of Racism and Xenophobia On Japanese-Americans 

                    Living In California During WWII

 

Papa's experiences are some of the same reasons why the predicament the local Hatano Farm faces really speaks to me. Somehow, a small California farm I pass on the way to school every day holds the same significance to a family whose descendants are still dealing with the uncomfortable history of American conflict and prejudice against its own citizens, similar to my grandfather’s experiences. As the farm faces shutdown or the threat of possible conversion from what was once a vast, thriving farm to an area marked for recreational purposes only, they also face losing an important part of their history and ugly truths about Japanese Americans being imprisoned in internment camps. This, too, is important American history that impacts all of us. 

 

In the same way, I feel that researching and examining my grandfather’s story is a way to keep a part of him alive. I also feel the Hatano Farm represents the same thing to James Hatano and his family. Sharing both of these veteran accounts and honoring their lived experiences and truths, even when it is uncomfortable or difficult to face, is necessary to actively and accurately preserve the legacy of American veterans and the history of this nation.

               3. My Personal Experience Meeting Holocaust Survivor Celina Biniaz

 

Just a few months after my family moved to California, my parents took my brother and me to a local synagogue to hear an older Jewish lady, Celina Karp Biniaz, speak. My mom told us that she was a Holocaust survivor and one of the last surviving people on “Schindler’s List.”  I was 10 and my brother was 13. My brother and I, being quite interested in this period of history, knew what Schindler’s List was and how special it would be to listen to Mrs. Biniaz speak, and possibly get to meet her. However, I was not completely prepared for the impact her life story would have on me and my family.

 

Celina Biniaz is one of the youngest survivors included in the now famous list of Jewish concentration camp inmates saved by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler. I had watched plenty of movies and documentaries, and read books and accounts of the Holocaust. But to be in the same room and hear the actual voice of a woman who, as a young girl, was passed over for extermination by Dr. Josef Mengele, known as “the Butcher of Auschwitz, as she was singled out to stand before him in the concentration/extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was much different. He had already flicked his pen to the right to indicate that she should die, but somehow she found the courage to ask him not to kill her. Her decision to speak changed his mind for some reason. 

 

It was disorienting and deeply upsetting to hear such a haunting story from the victim herself with all the details and emotion. It made everything so real, and it made me realize that I could never comprehend the depths of tragedy or the enormous scale of the Holocaust, or even fathom this one person’s individual experience. At 10 years old, my mind could not make sense of the horror of this man-made event, experienced by a living person standing in front of me describing it from personal knowledge, having been imprisoned in the camp at 8 years old, two years younger than I was. It was simply incomprehensible.

 

My brother, my mom and I were all crying while listening to her speak. I knew there were other concentration/death camp survivors in the audience because the rabbi had mentioned it. So I was surprised when the people around us who had also personally experienced this tragedy themselves or had lost countless relatives in the Holocaust began handing us tissues and patting my brother and me on the shoulder to comfort us. They were very kind but it didn’t feel appropriate to us that they should. We felt badly embarrassed that they have to comfort us, when this was their story. 

 

When Ms. Biniaz was done speaking, my mom waited for a chance to see if she would speak to my brother and me (one of my mother’s special talents, to expose us to different perspectives and lived experiences). That chance came and we spoke to her for several minutes before she had to go. The last thing she said to these two little Black boys standing before her with tears in our eyes was “you are my hope,” and then she told us that it was our responsibility to pass her story on. She hugged both of us with genuine affection. 

 

This was a defining moment in my motivation to study and research politics and conflict. It became much more than just a fun pastime or afternoon of binge-watching animated history videos for me. With Ms. Biniaz in mind her words made it a necessity that I do my part as a human being to ensure the lives and struggles of people who are victims of war are not forgotten, misinterpreted or misconstrued to serve other agendas. I have reflected on Mrs. Biniaz and her words to my brother and me many times. I expect I will measure myself against her instruction for the rest of my life.

II. CONCLUSION

 

I think it's important for people to know that racism and prejudice were important factors in all three of the personal accounts I researched and discussed in this report. It is especially noteworthy that while fighting in the Vietnam War, Black GIs experienced some of the same racial divisions they experienced at home in the United States. I think about soldiers like Papa, who voluntarily enlisted as a combat soldier during the height of the war, returning to his hometown of Greer, South Carolina, which was still racially segregated and did not treat him as an equal human being. 

 

He used to tell my mom, "It's hard to explain how it felt for people to be able to tell you as a child and as a grown man where you could sit, eat, drink water, or go to the bathroom. For you and your kids, nobody will be able to tell you that."

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I'm proud to be the grandson of someone who fought for me to live a better life and have more freedom than he experienced in his own life. He deserved respect.