Remember and Resist – Day of Remembrance
On February 19th, a number of Japanese American organizations and La Resistencia partnered to observe the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. This act authorized the US military to forcibly remove and incarcerate 120,000 people of Japanese descent across the west coast in 1942.
The action started at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. Most Japanese Americans in the Seattle area were detained at the Puyallup Assembly Center before their transfer to concentration camps at Minidoka, in Idaho and Tule Lake, in California. Formerly incarcerated Japanese American elders attended alongside their families and the public. Then the group gathered at the ICE Northwest detention facility in Tacoma to raise their voices in support of the detainees inside.
Listen in on some of the speakers and sounds from the event.
Producers: Kasumi Yamashita and Yuko Kodama
Photo: Pictured are Kennedy Philbrick (left) and Erin Matsuno (right). Photo taken by Kasumi Yamashita