Day of Remembrance
In June 2024 I traveled to Los Angeles to stamp my family’s names in The Ireichō (Book of Names). I hadn’t been to California since I was a child. It’s rich with my family’s history. My parents met there. My paternal grandparents were born there. My dad was born there. My brother, too.
When I learned about The Ireichō project, I pretty much forced my family to make it a priority to go visit it, together. It’s the first document to compile every single name of every single person incarcerated in the US Army, Department of Justice, Wartime Civil Control Administration, and War Relocation Authority camps during WWII.
I knew very little about the internment (concentration) camps growing up. It wasn’t until a high school class that I started to learn that history. And about my family’s connection. By that time, both of my grandparents had passed. But we had a few photographs from their time in the camps, a copy of my grandma’s WRA card, forms and WRA records indicating which camps they were sent to; fragments of a story I was never told.
When I listened to Densho’s podcast Campu, I started to understand that my story of not knowing was not unique. I never had the opportunity to ask my grandparents how they felt, what they went through, how they moved on. And I don’t know if they would have talked about it.
The Ireichō is huge.
A monumental book, designed with such thought and intention I was awestruck. The museum staff showed us to the small room where the book is held; the walls are lined with wooden beams that hold soil samples from every incarceration site around the country. I knew of the 10 WRA camps but didn’t realize how many more sites there were.
We came to our appointment with a total of 20 names to stamp. The staff member would look for the name, locate on the page, and we would stamp with a blue dot. Such a small, simple, beautiful act.
There are thousands of names in the book.
Over 125,000.
And thousands of blue dots.
The ripple of the injustice continues for generations.
I’m writing this post on the Day of Remembrance; February 19th. 84 years ago today, FDR signed executive order 9066 which allowed for this to happen.
And 84 years later.
We are still allowing this to happen.
This administration aims to erase our history from National Parks. Last summer, ICE marched on the very steps of the Japanese American National Museum in the heart of Little Tokyo where we journeyed to honor our family’s history. ICE continues to operate with no oversight, terrorize, detain children, and even murder our neighbors in broad daylight, under the guise of national security.
There are roughly 73,000 people in detention centers across the US (as of Jan 2026). DHS has plans to buy 34 warehouses to transform into detention centers.
History repeats.
Below is a poster, created by Tsuru for Solidarity, that reimagines the original civilians exclusionary order through today’s lens. I’ve printed this out to hang in my apartment as my daily reminder. We’ve got work to do.
Tsuru for Solidarity is an organization founded in 2019 by Japanese American and Japanese Latin American survivors of the WWII concentration camps & descendants working to end detention sites and support directly impacted immigrant and refugee communities targeted by racism, state violence, injustice and oppression in the United States.
You can download their poster to print here.