(Update: On February 27, Pike Place Market Foundation executive director Lillian Sherman announced her resignation effective March 7.)
On February 19, Tsuru for Solidarity organized a community gathering and protest for Day of Remembrance, commemorating the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Leaders of Tsuru for Solidarity and other speakers connected the history of Japanese American incarceration with the present policies of mass deportation and detention of immigrants by the Trump administration.
This year marked the 83rd anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which then led to the incarceration and expulsion of about 120,000 Japanese Americans. Tsuru for Solidarity has commemorated the Day of Remembrance since its founding in 2019. This year, they were hoping to host the event at Pike Place Market for the first time, in partnership with the Pike Place Market Foundation.
However, after months of collaboration, in which Pike Place gave no sign of opposition, the Market Foundation decided to rescind its sponsorship only 12 days before the event, according to Stanley Shikuma, an organizer with Tsuru for Solidarity.
“They said the missions did not align,” Shikuma said. “It seemed like they were mainly talking about the resistance part. So they seemed to be fine with the remembrance part, the history part, but not the resistance part.”
Tsuru for Solidarity views resistance as unavoidable, especially with the current political climate. All speakers at the event not only spoke of the history of incarceration, but saw intangible reflections of it with the current immigration policy.
Pike Place Market holds a history of trauma for Japanese-Americans in Seattle, which is why Tsuru for Solidarity wanted to host the event within the market walls. Prior to 1942, over 75% of the market’s farmers were Japanese Americans, contributing largely to the cultivation of the market flowers still sold today. Some of the members of Tsuru for Solidarity hold direct lineage to said farmers and tenants of the market. Tsuru for Solidarity members felt they were transparent in their mission for this Day of Remembrance, according to Shikuma.
“I think it’s the upheaval and the social fabric of the last three or four weeks since the inauguration put everyone on edge,” Shikuma said. “There’s a climate of fear and uncertainty that exists, and because of that I think people have become very skittish about taking positions.”
Pike Place Market Foundation has since then released an apology and their own commemorative piece on the Day of Remembrance. They did confirm that the “resistance portion of the event messaging did not align with the Market Foundation’s purpose as a social service organization,” Pike Place Market Foundation said in an email to the International Examiner.
“We recognize this was ultimately not the right choice and the decision created direct harm and impacted our entire community, specifically Japanese American advocates and our neighbors who are threatened by federal deportation policies and orders. We want to be better allies moving forward,” Pike Place Market Foundation said.
The event was moved to the Chinatown International District. The day began in Hing Hay Park, where leaders of Tsuru for Solidarity led a procession to Chiyo’s Garden for the main event. There, attendees were greeted with Tobe Daiko, a Seattle-based Taiko ensemble.
Speakers at Chiyo’s Garden took a decisive stance against the Trump administration’s immigration policy that targets migrant and undocumented communities. Speakers included members of Tsuru for Solidarity, La Resistencia, Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Awareness Group, and artist Erin Shigaki, whose art was recently the victim of an act of vandalism in Nihonmachi Alley.
“Even though we are all still in different parts of the healing process, because it’s a long process, this is the time for us as a community to stand up and be the allies that we wished had shown up for in 1941 and 1942,” Shigaki said to the crowd.
The rally continued with representatives from anti-deportation activist organizations across Seattle. Many critiqued the reoccurring system of oppression caused by fear of deportation and the ongoing conditions for detainees in the Northwest Detention Center, and Guantanamo Bay, where the Trump Administration seeks to repurpose more than 30,000 beds to create the largest detention center in U.S. history.
Mike Ishii, co-founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, said now is a time to be angry, especially as the administration seeks to start up family and child detention centers once again. “They are living and repeating our history,” Ishii said.
“The girl that will be put in a cage, she’s my daughter,” Ishii said. “She’s your daughter. She’s our child. And we must fight for all these children.”
Ishii thought of his own mother, who was an eight-year old girl incarcerated in Minidoka camp in Idaho. He asked: “If my mom was in a detention site today, what would I do to fight to get her out?”
Lynda Joko, member of Tsuru for Solidarity, mirrored this sentiment of history repeating itself, pointing to the deaths of three people at the Northwest Detention Center since she joined Tsuru for Solidarity back in 2019.
“[Northwest Detention Center] will throw them in solitary confinement with no end in sight,” Joko said. “They don’t know how long they’re going to be there. They don’t know where they’re going next. Japanese-Americans? It was the same thing.”
Becca Asaki, member of Tsuru for Solidarity, continues to fight against repeating history for her grandmother, who was incarcerated with her family at 14-years old and taken to a camp in Montana. She wore a tag, which incarcerated Japanese-Americans were forced to wear, to honor her grandmother.
“We are hoping to first and foremost honor our families,” Asaki said. “But also to draw attention to the comparison to this repetition of history.”
Tsuru for Solidarity continued the day with a private ceremony, as they visited places of trauma for the Japanese-American community. They will continue their protest Feb. 23 at the Northwest Detention Center in solidarity with La Resistencia.
