Nearly 80 years have passed since the signing of federal legislation that permitted the internment of Japanese Americans and local libraries are collaborating on a series of events aimed at honoring those affected.
“Each year there are fewer and fewer survivors and it’s important to us to share their stories with the broader community. So, the anniversary was really a great place to have that start off,” Susan Goetz, an employee with the San Bruno Public Library, said.
Confronting History: The Stories of Internment will be a nine-part series that touches on the history and long-term effects of Executive Order 9066, a wartime order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which authorized the army to forcibly remove and incarcerate roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans across western states and Hawai’i, including in San Mateo County, Goetz said.
Developing programming that could educate the public on the history in an age-appropriate way was top of mind, said Goetz who organized the events in collaboration with Stacy Lein with the South San Francisco Public Library and Fiona Potter with the Redwood City Public Library.
Recent political and social tensions including increased violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders was also top of mind, Goetz said, arguing there’s a “throughline” between the racially motivated crimes inflicted upon Japanese Americans then and the occurrences of today.
“We really are hoping the program series will allow the broader community to explore these past injustices and to inspire community action to combat current and future threats to our shared civil liberties,” Goetz said. “You don’t want to see that repeated and looking back and knowing this and seeing what happened here, we’re hoping that we can stop anything like that from happening again.”
The series begins Saturday, Feb. 5, and is being kicked off with a discussion with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, the author behind “Love in the Library,” which explores the love story of the author’s grandparents while set in a desert internment camp.
For teens, authors Misa Sugiura and Traci Chee will discuss their young-adult novels and the teen experience in internment camps and living up to family expectations. And graphic novelist Kiku Hughes will discuss her book “Displacement,” a story of a young Kiku who is transported back in time to witness life in an internment camp alongside her grandmother.
Film director Myles Matsuno will also sit for a Q&A following the screening of “First to Go,” a movie depicting “an intimate, inspirational and emotional story of the impact traumatic events can have across generations,” according to the event description.
Recommended for you
Members of Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent activist group for Japanese American social justice, will also lead a crane folding event called Folding Cranes to Protest, Speak Out & Heal on Saturday, Feb. 20.
All of the events will be held virtually, allowing Goetz, Lein and Potter to expand their search for speakers while also emphasizing and honoring local connections. In doing so, the team hopes a great number of people will have access to the programming given the increased use of technology during the pandemic, Lein said.
Some of the books being featured will also be available for free at specific library, while supplies last, thanks to the support of Friends of the Redwood City Public Library, South San Francisco Friends of the Library, Friends of the San Bruno Public Library and each respective city.
“Collaborating this way is new and I hope that in the future it’s going to happen more often and bring situations like this to the forefront for all members of the community,” Lein said.
Potter, a Japanese American, said getting to contribute to the series has been heartening, noting this piece of history is personal to her given that her grandfather’s family was interned in the Gila River Camp in Arizona. In an email, she noted events were intentionally not scheduled on Feb. 19, a traditional Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans, out of respect for the community and any other events scheduled on that day.
“This is a topic I’m very familiar with and it’s a privilege to get to bring more awareness to it in the larger community,” Potter said. “It’s heartening to work with colleagues that are outside that community but they’re equally passionate about bringing these events to the public and making sure people are aware of these stories.”
For more information on the Confronting History: The Stories of Internment series visit redwoodcity.org/departments/library/events/confronting-history or any of the three library websites. Visit jacl.org/day-of-remembrance for a partial list of events being held on the Day of Remembrance.
(650) 344-5200 ext. 106
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.