San José State University hosted its second annual Day of Remembrance at the Hammer Theatre Center on Monday.
Four educational events were held to acknowledge the anniversary of Executive Order 9066: three of which were panels, and an art walk to view the Japanese-American Internment Memorial Statue.
The statue was created by modernist sculptor Ruth Asawa to commemorate the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese and Japanese-Americans in California during World War II, according to SJSU’s College of Humanities and the Arts.
On Feb. 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was authorized by former President Franklin Roosevelt, which forced the incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans.
This order required Japanese-American citizens to move into constructed camps surrounded by armed troops and barbed wire, where they were also denied their Fifth Amendment rights, according to Dartmouth College.
The first educational session for the Day of Remembrance was a viewing and panel for the film “Nisei” by SJSU alumnus Darren Haruo Rae.
Nisei (二世) in Japanese translates to “second-generation”. This term was used in reference to a child of Japanese immigrants who was born and educated in the United States, according to a PBS article.
The short film is about two brothers who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II. It is based on the diaries of Rae’s grandfather, who served in the military unit.
“(Darren’s) grandfather wasn’t very open with a lot of it, just a little hints of here and there,” producer and co-director of Spartan Film, Nick Martinez said. “Then when he passed everything (was) given to Darren.”
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated Japanese-American military unit that is considered the most decorated military unit in U.S. history. This unit earned over 4,000 Purple Hearts with a unit of 18,000 men according to the National WWII Museum.
The film took 8 months to complete and around 40 to 70 hours of work each week, according to Martinez.
This short film has won six awards, one of those awards coming from the Cinequest Film and Creativity Festival, which resulted in a consideration for the 96th Academy Awards.
Carolyn Brown, acting vice president of the board of directors at the Japanese American Museum of San José said the film “did a nice job of shining the light on what happens when racism and xenophobia are elevated above the level of the individual.”
Brown said that the country's debate about immigration is alive and well, and it demands that people look at history and learn from it. She said that the history of what happened directly affects us today.
“If you look at today’s generation, there's this myth and it’s of the model minority,” Brown said
The model minority is a myth that is based on stereotypes and characterizes Asian Americans as a group that achieves a higher level of success than the general population, according to Learning for Justice.
“Consider for a moment that (Asian youth) aren’t trying to be better,” Brown said. “They’re trying to get their seat at the table in society.”
The Day of Remembrance is also a way for SJSU to acknowledge the campus’s role during Executive Order 9066.
During this executive order, SJSU’s campus had a building that acted as a registration center for 2,487 people of Japanese descent before being forcibly removed to incarceration camps. This building is now Yoshihiro Uchida Hall and was formerly called Spartan Complex West, according to San José State University’s blog.
This building is named after Yoshihiro Uchida, a SJSU alumnus who established the judo program at SJSU. After only a month into his studies, he was drafted into the U.S. Army serving as a medical technician, according to the Japanese American Museum of San José.
Business sophomore Jake Shimada said, “This is history right in front of us, and we have to tell these stories because who else is going to tell the story that they were here.”
Shimada said that it’s really important for the younger generation to make sure they keep the history alive and to tell their history and stories.
In between the first educational session and the second educational session was a Kumi-daiko performance by the San José Taiko Group.
Kumi-daiko is the art of Japanese drumming with the use of drums (taiko), according to Stanford University.
The San José Taiko Group was founded in the late 1960’s and was established by PJ Hirabayashi, who also helped establish SJSU’s Asian American Studies, said Wisa Uemura, a performer and executive director of San José Taiko Group.
Following the Taiko performance, a series of four speakers talked about the reason why the Day of Remembrance is important to the SJSU community.
“We’re here because we want to make sure we never forget the injustice of the Japanese internment during World War II,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said.
Chavez said that she is proud of SJSU for acknowledging the role and wrongs it played during Executive Order 9066. She said that a part of healing is being able to say ‘we were wrong’.
Nina Chuang, former SJSU Associated Students president, said she thought about how it was important for someone who wasn’t Japanese to take this history in her term as president.
“The fact I, an Asian American woman, served as student body president representative of thousands of students with various identities for an institution that was complicit for this injustice to happen,” Chuang said, “Made me feel like a contradiction.”
She said increasing awareness of the campus’s history is integral to the healing that must occur for the university to advance in serving its students.
“To better understand our institution we must acknowledge and condemn this injustice and take the steps to make sure this never happens again to any campus,” said Chuang.
