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Nov. 12, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
05:20
"Never Disgrace America"
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And given that it is Memorial Day this week, excuse me, Veterans Day.
Thank God we see his voice speaking to a ghost.
It is Veterans Day this week.
I have a great veteran, Major General James Mukayama, the first Asian American to lead a Army Division.
An Army Division.
Now, I should be able to remember that.
Yep, that's a big deal.
And his life has been gratitude for being an American.
His parents were born in Japan.
Well, no, your father was, and your mother's parents were.
Right.
Yeah, your mother was born in Madison, Wisconsin?
Yes, she was.
Right.
And with all, as I was saying to both the general and his wife here during the break, because the left runs our schools, they depict the Japanese American experiences, essentially the intern camps that Franklin Roosevelt set up for many Japanese Americans during World War II.
That's it.
People know nothing else.
And so we're talking about your father.
It's so interesting for people to understand this.
Your father came to the United States in 1918?
Yes.
That was the year my father was born.
So your dad came.
Now, let's imagine this, folks, because I want to talk to you about this, General.
Your father came from Japan.
Did he come alone?
Yes.
Yeah.
So no parents, no siblings?
No, but his father was already here.
Oh, his father was already here.
Yeah, it's a pretty interesting story.
We're from a place in Japan called Yamanashi.
It's right near Mount Fuji.
In fact, that's where our name comes from.
Muko-Yama.
Muko means over there, and Yama means mountain.
So when people ask me, you know, what does your name mean?
I'm an English major, so I like to say yonder mountain.
It sounds better than the mountain over there.
But anyway, when he was in grammar school, he was taught English was mandatory in grammar school.
That's fascinating.
In fact, he had to memorize the Gettysburg Address in English.
And that inculcated into him the ideas of freedom and equal opportunity.
And he wanted to be here and come here.
My grandfather was here because he had kind of invested in the Japanese sake market or something like that and lost half of the family fortune.
So he came to America.
Get this, in 1901.
My father was born in 1900, right?
1901, when my father was 18 years old, his father was still in the States.
So he didn't see his father his entire childhood.
Right.
And so he, so my grandmother.
Where was the grandfather?
Where was your father's father?
He was in Kearney, Nebraska.
Oh, can you imagine that?
I can't.
Imagine that in the 1900s, a Japanese man comes to Nebraska and thrived?
Yeah, he was the head of a kind of a farm immigrant labor group of Japanese.
Did your father love America?
Oh, absolutely.
He taught my brother and I the core values of the Japanese culture, which I talk about in the book, of Honor, dignity, perseverance, respect for elderly, respect for our teachers, education.
But he always emphasized to us: you are Americans.
You were born here.
This is your country.
You are blessed to be here, and you should be proud of it.
He had always told us: never disgrace the Japanese race or the Mukoyama name.
But more importantly, never disgrace America, because you're Americans.
I'm telling you, it's so important for people to hear this.
If you'd asked the average kid in a high school today, a Japanese man came to the United States in 1901 and in Nebraska, basically all white.
How was he treated?
And answer, really well, and loved America.
These are the stories people don't hear.
That's a really important story.
My dad, I'm telling you, I wish they'd have met.
My father was born in 1918.
My father, as I said, was an officer in the war.
And he raised my brother and me.
You're the luckiest Jews in history to live in America.
Just like your dad.
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