Approximately 250 community members gathered at the Washington State Fairgrounds on February 8 to attend the Day of Remembrance honoring the more than 7,500 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated at the Puyallup Assembly Center in 1942.
The program was emceed by Harold Taniguchi and opened with a land acknowledgement and Indigenous prayer song to recognize the Puyallup Tribe’s history and continued stewardship of the land where the Day of Remembrance took place. Eileen Yamada Lamphere, President of the Puyallup Valley JACL, spoke about the history behind the Day of Remembrance and why we continue to share the story of Japanese American WWII incarceration. Irene Fujii Mano, who was incarcerated at Puyallup and Minidoka with her family as a child, shared her personal experiences of WWII incarceration. Stan Shikuma of Tsuru for Solidarity and the Seattle JACL spoke about connections between Japanese American incarceration during WWII and migrant detention today, and encouraged attendees to find ways to stand up against current injustices and “stop repeating history.”
After the main program, Shikuma and Miwa Tokunaga led survivors and elders in a procession to the Remembrance Gallery. Remaining guests were then led to the Gallery in smaller groups by Gallery Docents. While waiting to visit the Gallery, guests viewed the Silent Fair video, talked to representatives from the events’ five co-sponsors, and purchased copies of the book Minidoka Memoirs: The Untold Story from the Yoshito Fujii Files being sold by Irene Fujii Mano.
