Day of Remembrance
Powerful Day of Remembrance activities have been taking place over this weekend. The day is a solemn remembrance of when more than 120,000 Japanese American men, women, children, and elderly people were forced into concentration camps, when FDR signed of EO 9066 on February 19, 1942.
Three months prior to the order, on the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and subsequent weeks after, Japanese American leaders, teachers, ministers, and priests, were arrested by the FBI and imprisoned in the former Immigration Station, now the Inscape Arts building. Many of these men were separated from their families and taken to Ft. Missoula. They were separately imprisoned from their families who were held in internment camps and couldn’t see each other for several years.
Pictured here is the cover and a detail from page 22 of the graphic novel We Hereby Refuse (Chin Music Press 2021), written by Tamiko Nimura and Frank Abe with artwork by Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki. The story follows three resisters of the forced removal: Hajime Jim Akutsu, Hiroshi Kashiwagi and Mitsuye Endo. The story of Jim Akutsu includes the Inscape/former INS building, of when his father was held here by the FBI.
This year, Friends of Inscape will lead an initiative for a community advisor group representing the immigrant, neighborhood, and art stakeholders to uncover the meaning of this building and envision its future that includes art studios. This work will be done thanks to a $25,000 Building for Equity Cultural Facilities grant recently awarded from 4Culture.
Thank you to @kc4culture for your support in this effort!
