Do you have kids, but are not sure how to participate in the Day of Remembrance? Here are some suggestions:

• *Attend the Japanese folk song sing-along from 4:30-5 (for the young and young at heart!)
• Attend the Tacoma Fuji Taiko performance from 5:30-6
•  Bring your kids to see the pop-up photo exhibit any time during the event
• Participate in the craft activity. Have the volunteers help your kids to fold a crane or write on a luggage tag
• Pick up an origami crane from one of the volunteers and attend the memory procession, 6:30-7PM, a short walk from the History Museum to Union Station.

All activities are free, since it’s Third Thursday.

From May 2nd-17th, our sponsors at the Children’s Museum of Tacoma are also participating by setting up an origami activity in their art studio space inside the museum. The results will be transported over to the History Museum on the Day of Remembrance.

Full schedule of events is here. 

 

Thanks to the wonders of social media, we heard from a Yonsei descendant of a historic Tacoma Japanese American family, the Nishijimas, who owned the Yakima Fruit Market (above and below).

Stacey Nishijima Ferguson is her family’s historian, and says that the family is mentioned in Ron Magden’s book FURUSATO.  The family rented a farm in Sumner, Washington, and eventually moved to Tacoma and opened a grocery store. During the war Satoshi Nishijima left Tule Lake and volunteered to train at Camp Savage Intelligence School in Minnesota. He is quoted in  FURUSATO. “I’m both sad and glad, but I’m more glad than sad to be leaving to serve,” he told a friend. “It was a tough decision leaving my wife and mother, but I feel that I’m  doing the right thing.” (152) After the war the family did not return to Tacoma.

With Stacey’s permission, we are sharing these historic photos of the family grocery store and Stacey’s reflections on going to the Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 2008 (below). Thank you, Stacey!

We hope to see many of you at our Day of Remembrance 2018.

*****

On the bus from San Francisco I was inspired by this journey I was about to take and what my Grandma and family and all the other innocent people went through. I thought I would share the words that came to me:

What If It Were Me?

As a small child I remember conversations about “Camp” were never spoken with a smile.
I vaguely remember whispers, stories and Shikata ga nai.
As I’ve grown my heart still questions why and what if it were me?
Would I have endured this “camp” with courage and dignity?
Would I have persevered and kept my head held high?
I wonder how I would have found the strength to survive.
Would I understand why my brothers would join the fight in this country’s war.
would we ever see them walking through our barracks door?
I understand why Mama cries at night, because she’s all alone.
She cries “everything we have is gone, are we ever going home?”
Would I understand why this happened to me, I’am just a young Japanese American…who wishes to be free.
Beyond these barbed wire fences is a home where I long to be.
I can only imagine what you must have gone through. What if it were me and what would I do?
Grandma because you endured
I thank you from the bottom of my soul. For all you had to suffer
I thank you for your role.
I understand who I am Because of who you were and because it happened to you, I never have to wonder……
“What if it were me?”

–Stacey Nishijima Ferguson

Tacoma Japanese American Day of Remembrance

Background: On May 17 and 18, 1942–on the authorization of President Franklin Roosevelt and the signing of Executive Order 9066–over 700 Japanese Americans were forcibly evacuated from Tacoma’s Union Station and sent to Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno, California. Though a small fraction of the population returned to Tacoma, the city’s once-thriving Japantown never returned to its prewar vitality.

Each year, Japanese American Days of Remembrance are held around the nation to commemorate the anniversary of this unjust and unconstitutional mass incarceration. This year will mark Tacoma’s third Day of Remembrance in recent memory.

We are grateful to our co-host institution, the Washington State History Museum, as well our sponsoring organizations: Puyallup Valley JACL, Seattle JACL, the Tacoma Historical Society, and the Children’s Museum of Tacoma.

Date: Thursday, May 17, 2018
Location: Washington State History Museum
4-7PM
FREE, kid-friendly

Event Schedule

4:00: Welcome and opening remarks by Tamiko Nimura, event organizer
4:30: Japanese folk song sing-along with Megumi Azekawa, music therapist
5:30: Tacoma Fuji Taiko, resident group with the Tacoma Buddhist Temple
6:00: Q&A with Professors Lisa Hoffman and Mary Hanneman of the Japanese Language School Oral History Project, UW Tacoma. Presentation on mapping Tacoma’s Japantown by Sarah Pyle, Urban Studies, UW Tacoma.
6:30: Memory procession from the History Museum to Union Station, minute of silence for those departed, remarks by local historian Michael Sullivan

Ongoing through the afternoon:

* Pop-up historic photo exhibit on “Tacoma’s Japantown: Then and Now” at the History Museum
* Origami crane display by 3 historically Japanese American Methodist congregations:  Blaine Memorial Church in Seattle, Highland Park in Spokane, and the Whitney Memorial UMC (formerly of Tacoma/Puyallup)
* Public craft activity in the museum lobby: creating a memorial sculpture with origami paper, luggage tags and bamboo

At the Children’s Museum of Tacoma from May 2-17, a craft activity will be set up in “Becka’s Studio” for people to fold an origami paper lantern or crane which will be displayed at the History Museum on the Day of Remembrance.

 

Want to learn more about how we created the app for our walking tour of Tacoma’s Japantown? Come to CR:T (Conversations Regarding Tacoma) at 1120 Creative House (950 Pacific Ave Suite #300, Tacoma WA 98402) on Thursday, November 9th, 6:30-8PM.

Here’s the event description:

“10 slides x 10 minutes with speakers who create Tacoma as their own. This fast-paced, fun event wraps up the series this year highlighting various Tacomans who strive to create this city as their own. Each speaker will have 10 minutes and 10 slides to show you how they understand what it means to be Tacoma. Come hear about how your friends and neighbors see this gritty city, and follow their journeys of making it their own.”

We’ll be doing a short presentation called “Taking Tacoma’s Japantown Online.” Other friends will be presenting their visions of (and for)Tacoma, including the CultureShock Collective, and it should be an exciting night!

Here’s our bio for the event:
“Tamiko and Josh are married artists (writer and composer) who have lived in Tacoma since 2004. Together with historian Michael Sullivan, they created a free phone app http://apple.co/2zrNb8M for iPhone, http://bit.ly/2yLbpxq for Android) documenting the history of Tacoma’s Japantown with a walking tour.”