"Remember Us," an
art display March 1-2, 2018, in the Multicultural Center at Linfield College,
paid homage to what happened during World War II in Portland to
Japanese-American citizens and other Oregonians and southwest Washingtonians
with Japanese ancestry.
On May 6, 1942, they were
forced to abandon their homes businesses and most possessions and live in
former animal stalls at the Pacific International Livestock and Exposition
Center, now the Portland Expo Center. It was called the "Portland Assembly
Center."
They were kept there under
armed guard behind barbed wire, without due process and denied their civil
rights due to hysteria, fear and racism following the entry of the U.S. into
World War II in December 1941.
Linfield trustee Larry and JoAnn Sims made the display in the Linfield Multicultural Center possible.
Husband and wife and Amity residents, the Sims are members of McMinnville First
Baptist Church and part of the Interfaith Advocates of Peace and Justice of
McMinnville and the Yamhill County Peacemakers. They are former directors of
the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima, Japan.
The "Remember Us"
art display is by artist, teacher and activist Chisao Hata of Portland. Sansei, third generation Japanese
American, her grandparents lived in Hood River/Odell, Oregon. They were among
about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific
coast, forcibly relocated and later incarcerated in federal internment camps in
the western U. S.
On the afternoon of May 6,
2017, "Return & Remembrance: A Pilgrimage to the Portland Assembly
Center" program was held at the Expo Center.
During it Hata led a
procession of people carrying her "Remember Us Tag Project." It
features replicas of paper tags worn by Japanese American internment camp
detainees.
Also during the program,
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued an
official apology for "failing to defend the civil and human rights of its
citizens and legal residents in 1942" in a gubernatorial proclamation. It
was first time the state officially apologized for Japanese American
incarceration. The proclamation designated May 6, 2017, "Return and
Remembrance Day."
(Sources for this story include Larry and JoAnn Sims and information
at Oregonian newspaper and KBOO radio station websites.)
