By Fumika Iwasaki The North American Post
About 60 community members visited the Washington Legislature in Olympia to attend an annual Day of Remembrance session on Feb. 18 to observe passages of the Senate Resolution 8724 and House Resolution 4660 to recognize the Japanese American history in Washington State.
To commemorate President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which resulted the mass-Japanese American incarceration during World War II, the Day of Remembrance has been widely held around the nation. The Seattle area held several Day of Remembrance related events, which can be seen in the photos above.
The 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 will be marked in 2017, and local organizations are planning on public and educational projects. Senator Bob Hasegawa and State Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos also announced the grantees of the Kip Tokuda Memorial Washington State Civil Liberties Public Education Fund in 2016 and 2017.
The Kip Tokuda Memorial Fund was created to educate the public regarding the history of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans through the development of school curriculum materials. This year, the six groups to receive funding are the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts for $58,000; Densho for $85,000; the International Examiner for $30,000; the Japanese American Citizens League Puyallup Valley Chapter for $20,000; The Seattle Historical Theatre Project for $20,000; and the Wing Luke
Museum for $37,000.
The Broadway Center will expand its “Civil Rights Legacy touring program with a new theatrical work that focuses on the experiences of Washington’s Japanese Americans and connects these experiences to current civil rights struggles. Densho will continue its work with teachers and its online educational programs as well as work to connect the Japanese American experience to other events such as the destruction of indigenous culture due to Western Expansion, African American slavery and discrimination and the mass deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression. Other projects include a 16-page featured insert in the International Examiner, a JACL teacher’s workshop with an emphasis on Camp Harmony, the production of a play about the Japanese American incarceration as seen through the lens of Seattle high school students and a collaborative project entitled “Inspiring Future Generations” by the Wing Luke Museum and Seattle Nisei Veterans Committee.
