- How should the victims be remembered?
- What should other schools do from here?
- Will this change the focus of the 2008 presidential campaigns?

Posted by Cathryn Broome in Blacksburg, Virginia:

As a student at Virginia Tech who has experienced this atrocity and has to go through the pain of a funeral today, I must say this. Indeed, no family, no school, no brother, no sister, no child, NO ONE deserves this. Yes, this is sad. Yes, we should keep the memory of all the fallen in our hearts. We welcome you to keep us in your thoughts, to console us, to pray for us. We welcome you to help us in any way you see fit. We do not, however, welcome your insults to our police force, or our university president, for those those insults hit our hearts as well. Being a Hokie is not just an empty name. Being a Hokie means embracing this unversity through good times and bad. It is a shared bond that we can't even begin to explain to others, and no one will ever fully comprehend. It is love for one another, that withstands the worst pain we could ever experience. After 4 years at this unversity, I have been transformed. I am a Hokie, tried and true and will never live down the motto, "Once a Hokie, Always a Hokie, Virginia Tech for Life." So we ask you this, stop the negativity. Stop the political talk. Stop the questioning of what COULD have been done. If you weren't here on that day, you will NEVER understand the horror we faced. If you did not lose someone you loved on Monday, while you may sympathize, you will never really feel the heartbreak that we feel, so please do not tell us that you understand, because as far as we're concerned, you don't. So take the negative energy you have been focusing on our university and inevitably us, and turn it into positive thoughts. Celebrate the 32 lives we lost. Celebrate our unviversity. Praise our HokieNation for the incredible feeling of togetherness and community we have shown the world. Throw away your political debates for now, disregard your thoughts on what could have been done, and diminish your anger and fears that this could happen to you. This didn't happen to you, this happened to us, and we surely hope it never happens again. All we want is to feel your love, while we share ours for the university and our fallen Hokie family. As Nikki Giovanni said, WE ARE VIRGINIA TECH, WE WILL PREVAIL.

I am second Generation Korean American and I think that:

- the generalization of Korean Americans could possibly lead to a racial backlash
- we are not bad people
- what differs, is the family concept we have
- we share a sense of guilt and shame about the others, but Cho's actions aren't caused by our culture nor our heritage

I hope the Americans don't look at us with a veil of hate.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was gripped by war hysteria. This was especially strong along the Pacific coast of the U.S., where residents feared more Japanese attacks on their cities, homes, and businesses. Leaders in California, Oregon, and Washington, demanded that the residents of Japanese ancestry be removed from their homes along the coast and relocated in isolated inland areas. As a result of this pressure, on February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the forcible internment of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

More than two-thirds of those interned under the Executive Order were citizens of the United States, and none had ever shown any disloyalty. The War Relocation Authority was created to administer the assembly centers, relocation centers, and internment camps, and relocation of Japanese-Americans began in April 1942. Internment camps were scattered all over the interior West, in isolated desert areas of Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming, where Japanese-Americans were forced to carry on their lives under harsh conditions. Executive Order 9066 was rescinded by President Roosevelt in 1944, and the last of the camps was closed in March, 1946

Dear my loved diary
Today the American soldiers came and took us to a place we didn't know. The Americans promised to bring us into a "resettlement camp".
But in reality the camps are prisons. There are fences with barbed wire and guarded by the military service.
My whole family and I live in one room without furnitures.
The camp is located in the desert and so, we are isolated.
We hope it would be better tomorrow.


Topaz

Did you know that the reason for thew immigration of the Korean Americans was because of the Japanes colonialsm?
The Koreans went to the US because they wanted to work there and wanted to live in peace.
When they were there, they couldn't return because they were people without a country now -no citizen of Korea and not a real citizen of America- and couldn't return to Korea.

Did you know that the Filipino Amerivans came to US to hope for a better future?
The Filipinos are poor people. So they went to the US to get money, that means they must work and live there with the family. That's the reason why they immigrated to America.

Did you know that the Chinese Americans came to the US because in China was a economic and political instability?
They also hoped to find gold because they needed money or to became affluent.

Poem:

Racism takes our life
and doesn't let them go back.
Racism, doesn't want to go
off the world. Why?
People are full of hope,
People are strong
but they resist everything.

Did you know that in 1942 the Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franclin D. Roosevelt?
The Executive order 9066 authorized the Army to "designate military areas" form which "any persons may be excluded". But the words Japanese Americans never appeared in the Order. Even so, the command was only used against the Japanes Americans.
And this all wasn't justified.

Did you know that Vincent Chin was killed with a baseball bat by two men because he was mistaken for a Japanese American?
Vincent Chin is a Chinese American who was born in Detroit. One day, he had stopped into a Club to celebrate his forthcoming marriage. But then he got an argument with two men. The two men mistaken Chin for a Japenese American and was blamed for America's sagging auto industry by Ron Ebens, a factory foreman for Chrysler Corp., and his stepson , Michael Nitz.
These two men came out after 3 years and had a fine of about $3.700 without any jail.

Did you know that the reasons for the immigration of the Japanese Americans was, that many wanted to avoid the military service in Japan and that they dindn't like the Japanese way of life? They also hoped for a better life, peace and a better future for their children.