San Jose Day of Remembrance commemorates the WW2 incarceration of Japanese-Americans, honors women activists

San Jose, CA – On February 16, around 350 people gathered at San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin to commemorate the signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese-Americans in U.S. concentration camps during World War II.

EO 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, and led to the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans to ten concentration camps throughout the western part of the United States. Two-thirds of those incarcerated were U.S. citizens. Additionally, dozens of Department of Justice camps held thousands more people, including over 2000 Japanese people who had been deported from Latin American countries, notably Peru, in order to be incarcerated in U.S. camps.

Nihonmachi Outreach Committee has been holding the San Jose Day of Remembrance annually since 1981. This year’s theme for the event was “Women Activists Leading Change.”

Guest speaker Diana Tsuchida told her family’s story of incarceration, recounting how her grandfather was separated from his wife and young son and transferred to the DoJ camp in Crystal City, Texas due to his protests against the concentration camps. She emphasized the renewed importance of speaking out about her family’s story given right-wing attempts to whitewash such history, saying, “There is a war being waged on history, a war being waged on the validity of experiences of marginalized people in this country – a movement to belittle or make excuses for past oppressions.”

Dr. Alice Yang, professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, said, “Activism is not just limited to the women who lead organizations or plan demonstrations – we definitely need those women, and I’m glad that many women have taken leadership positions in community organizations. But I think we also need to remember all the women who work behind the scenes.”

Yang continued, “These are women who supported their families in the camps, who wrote letters and made calls to support redress, who organized the buses that transported people to events like the redress commission hearings, and created protest art, poetry and literature. They are activists because they tried to help others and they encouraged others to continue helping people who are facing discrimination and injustice.”

Keynote speaker Bekki Shibayama encouraged attendees to support the Neighbors Not Enemies Act proposed by Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Mazie Hirono, which would repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. “Trump’s racist rhetoric is vilifying immigrants as the enemy, while his discriminatory policies are inflicting tremendous fear in our marginalized communities,” Shibayama said.

“Trump’s threats to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the mass deportation of immigrants call to mind the last time this wartime authority was implemented,” Shibayama continued. “The Alien Enemies Act permits summarily detaining and deporting non-citizens based merely on their ancestry in times of declared war or in response to an invasion from a foreign government.”

Shibayama expressed Nihonmachi Outreach Committee’s continued commitment to defending immigrants in the face of Trump’s attacks, and announced that the organization has joined the local Neighbors Not Enemies coalition to support the passage of the bill.

“Scapegoating, mass roundups, indefinite detention, mass deportation, and family separation are alarming reminders of the civil and human rights violations perpetrated against our families during World War II,” Shibayama stated.

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