TDART hosts “Asian American Discrimination: Then & Now” for Japanese American Day of Remembrance

“On February 18, 2023, the Tucson Desert Art Museum will host a special roundtable event entitled “Asian-American Discrimination: Then and Now” to commemorate the annual Day of Remembrance for Japanese American Incarceration during World War II on February 19. The event will be held from 11 am to 1 pm and attendees are encouraged to … Read more

New book “The Japanese American Experience: Change & Continuity” published by retired UA Professor Min Yanagihashi

My friend & fellow Council member on our Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition, retired UA Professor Min Yanagihashi has just published a new book entitled “The Japanese American Experience: Change & Continuity” by Liberty Hill Publishing.  Min is a Nisei (2nd generation) from Honolulu, Hawaii and taught at the University of Arizona in their East … Read more

Former U.S. Senate Aide Carolyn Sugiyama Classen: Creation of National Commission which investigated the wrong done to WWII Japanese Americans

This is a recap of most of my remarks at a recent Feb. 18, 2017 Day of Remembrance event at the Tucson Desert Art Museum, where there are currently 3 ongoing art & history exhibits on the WWII internment camps. About 120,000 Japanese Americans civilians (2/3 were U.S. Citizens, ½ were children) were rounded up by the US Government and incarcerated into 10 large relocation centers in desolate parts of America (including two camps in Arizona).  It is fitting to publish these remarks today, February 19, 2017, on the 75th anniversary of the signing by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of Executive Order 9066 which caused this unjust relocation & internment.

Carolyn Sugiyama Classen speaking at Day of Remembrance, courtesy of atty. Robin Blackwood. Panelists Professors Min Yanagihashi & Kathryn Nakagawa in background.

“I am Sansei (3rd generation) from Hawaii, as my grandparents Hyakuji and Tai Sugiyama left Hiroshima and arrived in June, 1892 to the Kingdom of Hawaii before it fell in 1893.  They became impoverished, indentured servants on sugar plantations in Hawaii. My grandparents had 8 children and my father Sueo was the last and youngest.

My father was the 1st in his family to go to college (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and was unfortunately in Los Angeles at USC Dental School when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941. He was summarily expelled from USC due to his race, along with other Japanese American students. My father nicknamed Francis (a U.S. Citizen) did not return home to Hawaii, but stayed in Los Angeles, later obtained a “voluntary” pass from Western Defense Command General John DeWitt and fled to Chicago. He left his belongings with a Jewish woman in L.A. and she subsequently shipped them to him. He stayed in Chicago, took classes at Loyola University, then got re-admitted to Dental School at the U. of Maryland, finishing in 1946.  (I found out later that about 500 others also got passes and voluntarily left the West Coast for inland states.)

Fast forward to me as a young attorney practicing law on the island of Kauai, when I decided to go to Washington D.C. to work for U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye. How did I know the Senator? He had always been in our family discussions (“Cousin Dan”), as he was married to first cousin Maggie, the 2nd of 6 daughters of Aunty Omitsu Sugiyama Awamura of Honolulu.  Aunty was my father’s 2nd oldest sister of the 8 children of my immigrant grandparents. My father had been the last born of the 8 children, and was more then 20 years younger than the oldest siblings.

Dan Inouye and cousin Maggie were married before I was even born.  Inouye was a decorated combat veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Battalion, lost his right arm in the war, had been elected as Hawaii’s first Congressman in 1959 (when Hawaii became a state).  He became a U.S. Senator in 1963, and attended by older brother’s high school graduation when I was 16 (when I first met him).

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Day of Remembrance (75th anniversary of E.O. 9066 interning Japanese Americans during WWII) at Tucson Desert Art Museum

Executive Order 9066 Day of Remembrance at Tucson Desert Art Museum, 7000 E. Tanque Verde Rd. Tucson (west of Sabino Canyon Rd.)

February 18, 2017 11:00 am-2:00 pm
“Join us to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the incarceration of over 100,000 Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. War hysteria and racial prejudice allowed the government to institute a mass detention program based on “military justification.” Speakers include academic experts in history and politics from UA and ASU who have researched or have intimate knowledge of the camps.”

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Academic Panel discussion on Japanese American Internment during WWII featuring:
Carolyn Sugiyama Classen, former Legislative Aide to U.S. Senator Daniel K. Inouye
Prof. Kathryn Nakagawa, ASU Associate Professor in Asian Pacific American Studies, School of Social Transformation, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Prof.Min Yanagihashi, UA (retired), East Asian Studies Dept.

“Acts of Translation” to be read by poet Heather Nagami at 12:30 p.m. whose work has been on display there since Nov.5, 2016. Heather’s family was interned at several of the camps.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Discussion on “Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit: Triumphing over Adversity. Japanese American WWII Incarceration Reflections, Then and Now” featuring:
Paul Kitagaki, Jr., Photographer with Susie and Terry Matsunaga relating perspectives on incarceration from personal and family experiences.

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