Languages of Memory: A South Sound Japanese American Day of Remembrance

Join us for a free community program commemorating the 80th anniversary of the wartime eviction of more than 700 Japanese American people from Tacoma on May 17 and 18, 1942.

Tacoma Arts Live is partnering with writer and public historian Tamiko Nimura and WSHS to present “Languages of Memory: A South Sound Japanese American Day of Remembrance” at the Washington State History Museum.

• 6:00 - 6:50 p.m. – See a screening of Nihonjin Face courtesy of Tacoma Arts Live. The play was written by Janet Hayakawa, education specialist at Densho, and Tere Martinez, a playwright and educator. Hayakawa will present a literary reading following the screening.10-minute break.
• 7:00 p.m. – Listen to literary readings and a poetry performance.
  Tamiko Nimura, a creative nonfiction writer and public historian from Tacoma, will read from her memoir-in-progress, Pilgrimage: One Japanese American Daughter’s Journey through Grief, Memory, and History. The daughter of a Japanese American wartime incarceree, Nimura’s memoir explores the personal, historical, and psychological afterlife of Japanese American wartime incarceration.
  
  Celia Nimura-Parmenter and the internationally renowned performance artist Anida Yoeu Ali will also read. Ali is an artist whose works investigate the artistic, spiritual, and political collisions of her hybrid transnational identity.
• 8:00 p.m. – Explore the newly updated REMEMBRANCE gallery, sharing the legacy of Executive Order 9066 and the Japanese American wartime incarceration. Receive a daruma – a Japanese symbol of resilience – created by artist Teruko Nimura, your gift to take home.
• 8:20 p.m. – Take part in a procession to Union Station (next door to the History Museum) for remarks with local historian Michael Sullivan, and a moment of remembrance for Tacoma’s Japanese American community who were forced to leave their homes in Tacoma eighty years ago, departing from Union Station.

No registration is needed and the program is free. Entrance to the History Museum begins at 5:45 p.m.