Silent march ties U.S. immigration polices to past internment
BY EDDY MARTINEZ
Tourists wearing backpacks passed
by Emily Fujikado Akpan, 24, as
she stood outside Penn Station
around on Feb. 22. But even though she
was bundled up with a scarf and a wool
coat with a suitcase sitting next to her on
the sidewalk, Akpa was not a tourist waiting
to take in the sights.
The 24-year-old Brooklynite was
waiting to take part in a silent march to
commemorate the mass imprisonment
of 120,000 Japanese Americans during
World War II. Marchers, like Akpan, carried
old suitcases and dressed in 1940s
style clothing to act as physical reminders
of the interned as they walked to the Japanese
United Church at 255 7th Avenue. A
woman leading the march rang a bell to
grab the attention of passersby.
“The memory of that camp to riding the
train, with soldiers armed with rifles… in
two days, there was no air conditioner,
anything,” said Tadashi Tsufura, 90,
Woodside, Queens resident and survivor
of the internment camp at Gila River in
Arizona. “That train ride is something that
never leaves my mind.”
Round-ups of Japanese Americans
started in 1942, in the wake of the attack
on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. government
explained that it was based purely on national
security but historians now agree
that the mass roundups were motivated
largely by racism. Internment camps were
placed mostly all over the west coast and
in the southwest, from Washington to Arizona
to Wyoming. Conditions were often
austere, with armed guards posted at the
entrances. Japanese Americans who tried
to leave were shot. They were released
from the camps in 1944, as the war turned
against Japan. The U.S. government issued
a formal apology in the 1980’s. California
only recently issued a formal apology.
For these marchers and their supporters,
the procession is more than a
commemoration, it’s also a reminder that
they link their suffering to the modern immigration
debate in New York City. At the
end of their march, they unfurled a banner
which read”Stop Deportation Now!”. They
spoke from a painfully similar experience.
Once marchers arrived at the church, their
mission shifted, it was a day of remembrance
but also a day of action.
Marchers then took part in the first
New York chapter meeting for Tsuru for
Solidarity, a Japanese American activist
organization formed last year and opposes
the use of immigrant detention centers in
the United States.
“We want to remember our history
so that the injustice that happened to
Marchers walked down 7th Avenue in 1940’s style clothing in rememberance of the Japanese-Americans
interned during World War II.
Japanese Americans never happens again,”
she said. Akpan, whose grandmother
was incarcerated at Minidoka, grew up
in Brooklyn. “I mean growing up in New
York City and growing up in a predominantly
black and brown community and
also being black myself, just like these issues
have always been on my mind.” The
PHOTO BY EDDY MARTINEZ
group had unfurled a banner in front of
the church stating, “Stop Deportations.”
The event concluded with a potluck in the
basement.
PHOTO BY EDDY MARTINEZ
Marchr Karen Lee at the front of the silent march rang a bell to make sure those walking by would look at
their protest.
4 March 5, 2020 Schneps Media