Use controls above or click here to open this Hometown Heroes podcast in a new window
Episode #720 of Hometown Heroes, airing February 11-14, 2022, prepares us for this year’s “Day of Remembrance” and the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. After Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and other installations on December 7th, 1941, many Americans of Japanese ancestry were unfairly targeted.

Some, like Sam Terasaki, whose story you’ll hear on this episode, were quickly visited by FBI agents and interrogated with regard to their loyalties. On February 19th, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which would lead to the incarceration of close to 120,000 people, roughly two-thirds of which were American citizens, born in the United States. Each February, “Day of Remembrance” events are held throughout the country, to make sure the unfair vilification and unconstitutional detainment of those Americans is not forgotten.

One of the first events this year will be a virtual observance organized by the oldest chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), founded in 1923 in Fresno, CA. Author James Ardaiz, whose book Tears of Honor was featured on Hometown Heroes in our Day of Remembrance episode in 2021, is this year’s recipient of the Fresno JACL’s Spirit of Education Award. Ardaiz will participate in a February 12th discussion about this chapter of our history and the upcoming 80th anniversary of 9066.

In 1942, Americans of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes, sent to temporary holding areas called Assembly Centers, from which they were transported to ten more permanent “Relocation Centers.” The first of those camps to house these displaced Americans was Manzanar, near Lone Pine on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern California. Manzanar remains the most well-preserved of the internment camps, and is now maintained by the National Park Service as a National Historic Site. In honor of the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, Manzanar will host a “Go For Broke Spirit” photo exhibition created by Shane Sato, who has published portraits of more than 150 Nisei veterans World War II, including some who have shared their stories on Hometown Heroes.

Manzanar’s virtual Day of Remembrance event, organized by the Eastern Sierra Interpretive Association, will take place February 18th, 2022, from 2-3 p.m. and feature Sato, along with one of the veterans featured in his first coffee table book, Yoshio “Yosh” Nakamura of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. For a Zoom link to participate, please e-mail Gena@ESIAonline.org. Nakamura, one of approximately 33,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry to serve in U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, will also participate in a Tomo no Kai program at UC Irvine on February 20th. Also in southern California, Dr. Mitch Maki, CEO of the Go For Broke National Education Center, will speak at Loyola Marymount University’s Day of Remembrance event on February 19th.

The Go For Broke Center’s traveling Courage and Compassion exhibit, which we first told you about on episode #506 of Hometown Heroes when the exhibit debuted in 2018, will launch February 23rd at the Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum in Dallas, TX. You’ll have until June to experience the interactive exhibit, which allows you to imagine yourself in the shoes of those Americans forced out of their homes and held behind barbed wire in the wake of Executive Order 9066.