Watch the entire 2019 Los Angeles Day of Remembrance program. To see the program’s schedule broken out by time codes visit youtube.com/janmdotorg
On February 16, the Japanese American National Museum proudly hosted the 2019 Los Angeles Day of Remembrance, marking the 77th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066, which led to the forced exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. With our many partners for the event, we honored and remembered those who were confined in America’s concentration camps during the war.
The day centered on the theme Behind Barbed Wire: Keeping Children Safe and Families Together. By exploring parallels of America during the 1940s and those in our country today, the program drew comparisons between the concentration camps that forcibly held Japanese Americans and the eerily similar modern-day detention centers currently used to hold migrants, mostly from Central America, who are seeking asylum in the United States to escape poverty, violence, and gangs. The evolution of rhetoric surrounding immigration in America was also probed.
The 2019 Los Angeles Day of Remembrance opened with a solemn but vibrant musical performance by Ichiza Taiko, followed by a dramatic reading (in two parts) of the Kondo family letters from camp by Edward Hong and Kelvin Han Yee. The letters told a story of trauma, perseverance, and ultimately survival that put a very personal face on those who lived during this tragic chapter in the nation’s history. The Day of Remembrance closed with the audience taking a poignant oath together, promising to be unafraid to use their voice and to care for others who are voiceless.
JANM’s partners for the Day of Remembrance were Go For Broke National Education Center, Japanese American Citizens League–Pacific Southwest District, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Kizuna, Manzanar Committee, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, Nikkei Progressives, Organization of Chinese Americans–Greater Los Angeles, and Progressive Asian Network for Action (PANA).