2023 GVJCI Day of Remembrance Online Event

Each year, the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (GVJCI) holds its annual Day of Remembrance (DOR) which commemorates the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. A different theme and related film is selected each year, and a panel of experts is carefully selected to help further educate the community on the events, experiences, and lessons that should be learned from this time in American history. The GVJCI and the DOR Committee are so grateful for the tremendous support shown by the community each year and hope our DOR program continues to educate and motivate all people to speak out against injustice in all its forms.

This year, the theme for the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute’s 2023 Day of Remembrance will be “Campaign For Justice: The Japanese Latin American Story,” highlighting the hidden history and stories of Japanese Latin Americans who were abducted from their home countries and wrongfully incarcerated in the United States during World War II. In a virtual live program on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the GVJCI will feature the 2004 short film, Hidden Internment: The Art Shibayama Story followed by a discussion with a panel of experts featuring Director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project and coordinator for Campaign For Justice: Redress Now For Japanese Latin Americans, Grace Shimizu, University of Maryland professor and Co-President of the Board of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Phil Nash, and former Japanese Peruvian incarceree at Crystal City, Chieko Kamisato. We hope the community will come away with a stronger understanding of the meaning of justice, the repercussions of ongoing discriminatory action by the government, and what people can do to support the cause and fight for redress. To register for this online event, please visit the GVJCI website.

2023 GVJCI Day of Remembrance Program Recording

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ABOUT THE FILM:
Hidden Internment: The Art Shibayama Story

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Hidden Internment is a 2004 documentary film about the life of Art Shibayama, a Japanese Peruvian who was forcibly taken from his home in Peru in 1944 when he was thirteen years old, and incarcerated in a Department of Justice camp in Crystal City, Texas, for the duration of World War II. This film explores the lesser-known history of the Japanese Latin American detention, where over 2,000 Latin Americans were essentially kidnapped from their countries and incarcerated in American government concentration camps, to be used as political pawns between countries. Using first-person narrative and archival footage, the film shows how despite their traumatic experiences and wrongful treatment, Shibayama and other Latin Americans have been denied redress that was awarded to Japanese Americans in 1988 for their loss of civil liberties and forced wartime incarceration. ​

Day of Remembrance Program Speakers

Grace Shimizu, Director, Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, Director, Campaign For Justice: Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans!

GRACE SHIMIZU, J.D., serves as director of the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, director of the Campaign For Justice: Redress NOW for Japanese Latin Americans!, and project manager of the updated traveling exhibit, “The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II.”  She is a leading advocate for formerly interned Japanese Latin Americans and their families to secure U.S. government reparations for human rights violations under the WWII Latin American extraordinary rendition program. Her father was an Issei in Peru who, along with other family members, was interned in the Department of Justice camp at Crystal City, Texas.  Close relatives on both her parents’ sides were incarcerated in the War Relocation Authority camps. 
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Grace also serves on the executive committee of the SF Bay Area “Comfort Women” Justice Coalition, educating the public about the WWII Japanese military sex slavery system forced upon over 400,000 women and children from 13 countries and the ongoing historical denialism and reparations struggles with the Japanese government.  She supports Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED) at San Francisco State University and its director, building campus-community solidarity, particularly against attacks on academic freedom and the creation of hostile work and study environment. 

Phil Nash, Professor, Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, Co-President of the Board of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)

Phil Tajitsu Nash teaches in the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), and serves as Co-President of the Board of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF). He previously served as Founding Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), Curator of the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution’s 2010 Folklife Festival, and columnist for the N.Y. Nichibei and Asian Week newspapers.
Nash has taught law, urban studies, and APA history, art, oral history, and public policy classes at UMCP, Yale, New York University, The City College of New York, and CUNY and Georgetown law schools. He also is affiliated with the University of Maryland Latin American Studies Center, based on a Study Abroad class he has taught bringing students to an Indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon, his research on Japanese Brazilians, and his decades of work with Native Americans in North America and Brazil on human rights, culture, and language issues.

Chieko Kamisato, Former Japanese Peruvian Incarceree at Crystal City Concentration Camp

Chieko Kamisato is the oldest child in the Kamisato family and was old enough, at that time during the war, to recollect what happened to them during this period. Over the years, she has been very active in re-telling the family story as well as participating in events that reflect and bring light to this sad part of history. Having had experienced this as a child, she will never forget the forceful removal of Junken from Peru, their family life in Crystal City Internment Camp, the hardships of the seasonal work at Seabrook Farms and finally, the years of rebuilding the family and business in Los Angeles. Here are her words speaking of her life as a forced internee during a recent interview for The Continuing Fight for Justice for Japanese Latin Americans video.
“Being in a strange country, not knowing the language was very difficult, especially for our parents because they had to start all over again. Starting from nothing was devastating and this is where our real struggle began, not only for us, but for everybody who was thrown into Crystal City camp during the war. We all suffered, we all went through the same thing, and it was all very difficult. I think the younger generation should know what happened and what went on with our lives, because it’s a very important part of history. I don’t think it should just go away, it should be told and retold for the next generation to know what had happened to us, so it won’t happen again. I don’t think it was right for them (US Government) to do that, I don’t think it’s right for anybody to do this in the future.”

CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE: REDRESS NOW FOR JAPANESE LATIN AMERICANS

CREDIT: ​https://jlacampaignforjustice.org/who-we-are/
​Campaign for Justice: Redress NOW for Japanese Latin Americans! (CFJ) is a grassroots community advocacy and educational organization established to secure proper redress for the Japanese Latin Americans who endured war crimes and crimes against humanity under the U.S. WWII Latin American rendition program.

Campaign for Justice was founded in 1996 as a collaborative effort by former Japanese Latin American internees and their families; organizations including the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (formerly known as the National Coalition for Redress & Reparations) and American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California; and individuals in the U.S. and other countries.
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Campaign for Justice has three primary goals:
  • First, we seek to secure proper redress for former Japanese Latin American internees.
  • Second, we want this hidden history to be widely known to prevent such reoccurrence, so we work to educate the public about the wartime and redress experiences of the Japanese Latin American internees.
  • Third, we want a world free of such civil and human rights violations perpetrated under the WWII Latin American rendition program, so we work in solidarity with other social justice struggles to draw lessons from our histories and apply them to the challenges we face today.
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COMMEMORATIVE GVJCI DOR PIN SET DONATION GIFT
Those who donate a minimum of $20 have the option of receiving a commemorative GVJCI DOR pin set (pin size is 1.25" in diameter). Each additional $20 donation qualifies for another pin set. Pin set gifts available for qualified donations received through March 11, 2022. Pins will be mailed out to donors in April. Thank you for your support!
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THANK YOU TO OUR COMMUNITY SUPPORTERS!

Click on any organization's logo to visit their website and learn more!
Gerth Archives & Special Collections Department at the CSU Dominguez Hills Library
​El Camino College, Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences,
​El Camino College, Division of Humanities
This program is co-sponsored by the George and Sakaye Aratani CARE Award, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and Valerie J. Matsumoto, George and Sakaye Aratani Chair on the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community, University of California, Los Angeles