Day of Remembrance: A Teachable Moment
A solemn reminder to not let history repeat itself
In many ways February 19, 1942 shaped my life, although I would not be born for 14 more years. In 1942 my mother was an 11-year old girl in Stockton, California and although I’m not sure how well-off her family was, I’ve heard stories of them owning several cars at the time and my grandfather running a business. My father’s family was not so well-off in San Francisco. Dad was not yet 14 and their family of six, like many immigrant families, was struggling. My grandfather and grandmother were working menial jobs that did not require English fluency. All four of my grandparents were from Japan and they came to the United States to pursue the American dream.
Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor just months before and all Japanese American families were worried. The FBI had arrested male community leaders just after December 7th and there were rumors that immigrants like my grandparents would be locked up or deported. Curfews were in place and my relatives were unable to be out late at night or too far from their homes. Bank accounts were frozen so that people could not access their money. The uncertainty and rumors made people scared.
On February 19th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which led to the ultimate incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens. And that changed the course of my life.
My parents and their families were among those removed from their West Coast homes and taken to Assembly Centers while more permanent concentrations camps were built in the interior of the country.
My dad’s family’s first stop was at the Tanforan Racetrack, just south of San Francisco. Families were housed in either the hastily built barracks located in the infield of the racetrack, or, like my family, assigned to whitewashed horse stalls. Dad said they could smell the stench of horse manure and see horsehair embedded in the sloppy whitewashing job on the walls. Their mattresses were sacks filled with hay. The Fukami family eventually ended up imprisoned at the Topaz Relocation Center in central Utah, about 150 miles from Salt Lake City.
Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, photo by Dorthea Lange.
From their home in Stockton, my mom’s family first lived at the Stockton fairgrounds and racetrack, then the Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona, and finally they ended up at the Tule Lake Segregation Center near the California/Oregon border. After the war, when they were allowed to return back to their homes on the West Coast, both families found they lost everything they left behind.
They would have to start all over again in a post-war racist environment.
When my parents married in the 1950s, they were turned away from many rental units in San Francisco because of lingering discrimination against Japanese Americans. When I was young, Dad explained why my sister and I were never given a Japanese middle name, like so many of our friends. He said: “You already have two strikes against you; the color of your skin and the shape of your eyes. We weren’t going to give you a Japanese middle name too.”
There were other ways the scars of their incarceration would surface. Dad didn’t like going to buffet restaurants: “I had enough of standing in line for my food in camp.” My parents refused to eat lamb, which was too similar to the mutton they were fed in camp.
Source: Library of Congress, photo by Ansel Adams.
They seemed to keep everything, never knowing when it might be needed or possibly lost for good.
College educations were a priority for their children because knowledge was the one thing that couldn’t be taken away.
Their social circle was limited to mostly family and other Japanese Americans. For so many who had been abandoned by their white friends, I think there was safety in staying with their own kind.
Like many third-generation Japanese Americans known as “sansei,” their experiences left a mark on me. As a documentary filmmaker I have told the story of the Japanese American experience many times, most recently in the film “Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story,” which was broadcast nationally on PBS in 2019.
Still image from “Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story”
Born the same year as my mom, Norm Mineta and his family were incarcerated at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming when he was 10 years old. But he overcame discrimination and adversity to become the mayor of San Jose, a U.S. member of Congress for 10 terms, Secretary of Commerce under Bill Clinton and Secretary of Transportation under George W. Bush.
When co-producer Debra Nakatomi and I conceived of this project, we wanted Norm’s life to reflect not just the unique role that Japanese Americans held in American history, but also to be used as an opportunity to explore contemporary issues facing our country today. From our film, grew our idea for a curriculum to explore important aspects of the American experience, starting with immigration in America, which has always been controversial. We wanted to examine civil liberties and equity, to see what led this country to incarcerate Japanese Americans and if it could happen again. We also wanted to look at other racial and cultural issues we face as Americans, along with the importance of civic engagement, because we wondered if President Roosevelt would have signed Executive Order 9066 if Japanese Americans were in political positions of power.
We pondered the importance of leadership and how it can be cultivated and nurtured, and we considered the significance of justice and reconciliation as we look at past and current injustices and how to apologize and make reparations.
We also wanted to highlight the history and status of U.S.– Japan relations, because if there had been a stronger relationship and a clearer understanding between the two countries perhaps history would not have played out as it had.
We reached out to Dr. Gary Mukai and Rylan Sekiguchi who are curriculum developers at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University to create the curriculum we call “What Does It Mean To Be An American?”
The result is a free web-based program for high school and college educators with text, more than 200 primary source images, 23 videos, lesson plans, activities, and assignments that are all standards-aligned and available to everyone.
In honor of February 19th, now called the Day of Remembrance, we are presenting a free webinar to demonstrate how to use and navigate your way through the curriculum so that you can use its unique tools for students. Registration is free and can be done here. The webinar will be Saturday morning February 20th from 10–11 a.m. Pacific Time.
For me, Day of Remembrance 2021 will be especially memorable as it will provide an additional opportunity to educate people on an even more personal level. My daughter, Hillary Nakano, and I will be co-emceeing the San Francisco Bay Area Day of Remembrance virtual program on the actual date, February 19th from 6–7:30 pm Pacific Time via Zoom. This year’s theme is “Abolition! Reparations! Carrying the Light for Justice” as we remember the ties between the Japanese American and African American communities and the challenges ahead as we fight for equality for everyone. Free registration can be found here.
I often wonder how things would be different if my family had never been imprisoned because of their ancestry, if my parents were always treated equally and with respect, if President Roosevelt had never signed Executive Order 9066. The Day of Remembrance is a teachable moment that can happen within the classroom and outside of it.
We should never forget what happened to Japanese Americans in 1942, but more important, it should never be repeated again.
Dianne Fukami has been teaching multimedia and communication classes to college students since 2009. She is also an award-winning TV and documentary film producer. During the month of February, in honor of the Day of Remembrance, you may stream the film “Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story” for free.
