
Let it not happen again, nidoto nai yoni, is carved into the entrance of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, marking the site where the first group of Japanese internees were taken in the United States. This project traces my family’s story of internment, which horrifically coincides with atrocities that are being committed daily on those who are inhumanely held in detention centers.
August 20, 1921 My great-grandmother, Kisayo Sadakuni Tamiyasu arrives in Seattle, Washington aboard the SS Alamaba Maru, she was 16, married to Shigeto Tamiyasu, and couldn’t speak a word of English. Shigeto and Kisayo Tamiyasu farmed in Oregon where they settled down in Brooks, Oregon.
February 19, 1942 Executive Order 9066 is signed.
My grandmother, Suzuko Fujii, but we all know her as Jinx, was 12 years old when she watched her parents burn all their Japanese possessions wondering “Why do we have to do this?”
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June 1, 1942 The Tamiyasu family, Kisayo, Shigeto, Masao (Mutt), Haruye (Pauline), Mikio (Micki), Toshio (Toshi), were moved to Tule Lake Internment Camp, California with 29,000 Japanese Americans. Ed Shigeo Tamiyasu was born there.
1943 They were moved to Minidoka Internment Camp, Idaho. Lynn Keiko Tamiyasu was born.
August 15, 1945 The family returned to Portland, Oregon but never to their home in Brooks, Oregon.
1952 Immigration Act ended Asian exclusion which had barred Asian immigrants from gaining citizenship.
December, 8, 1955 Kisayo Tamiyasu became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.
There are more than 200 immigrant prisons and jails in the US today. In Washington, we house one of the largest detention centers in the US with nearly 1600 beds. Never again is now. Don’t be passive in the face of racist, inhumane immigration policies. Learn more! Do more.
Nidoto Nai Yoni
Never again is NOW.


