The story of Japanese-Americans who faced discrimination, internment, and
hardship on American soil during the war rarely surfaces within the recollections of
WWII."Harmony" is a poignant monument to the enduring efforts of the Japanese-American community in the Pacific Northwest to ensure their experiences are remembered and acknowledged.

American bigotry marked the Japanese-American story as they arrived on Western shores. Decades of institutionalized racism led to their forced four-year internment during World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. While World War II is celebrated in American history, it remains a painful memory for Japanese Americans. However, a resilient Japanese-American community fought to reclaim their lives in the postwar aftermath. Their lobbying efforts led to public apologies, compensation, and the creation of monuments to commemorate their suffering.

In the Pacific Northwest, the Japanese-American community took early steps in memorialization efforts. They organized the first Day of Remembrance celebration in the United States and, five years later, unveiled one of the first monuments dedicated to Japanese American internment victims. This Harmony sculpture monument stands on the former site of Washington State's only World War II internment camp. Created by local artist George Tsutakawa, whose personal story is intertwined with this American history chapter, Harmony encapsulates the Japanese-American experience through its approval, location, and continued visitation.

The Japanese-American experience in the United States began in the late 19th century due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which increased Japanese immigration. These immigrants played a significant role in the West Coast's economy. Still, they faced discrimination and immigration quotas, culminating in the internment order of 1942. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Executive Order 9066 authorized the internment of Japanese-Americans, affecting 75,000 citizens and 45,000 Japanese nationals. The entire West Coast became an exclusion zone, a territory stretching from the Canadian border in Washington down to the Mexican border in New Mexico. The construction of assembly centers began to gather Japanese populations. In the Pacific Northwest, the Puyallup Assembly Center operated for nearly four months, housing thousands of internees before receiving transfer to other camps. Even before the arrival of the first internees at the Puyallup Assembly Center, officials already referred to the site as Camp Harmony. While the Washingtonian internment camp saga would last for a relatively short four months, many local Japanese Americans would endure internment nightmares until March 1946, nearly six months after the unconditional surrender of Japan and four years after the enactment of Executive Order 9066.

George Tsutakawa, the creator of Harmony, was a second-generation Nisei whose life mirrored the community's struggles. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army. He visited an internment camp in Northern California to visit friends and family. It was during one such visit that he met his future wife. This experience would later inspire him to create the monument.

After the war, Japanese-Americans faced prejudice upon returning home. It took years of continued political pressure and education to have their plight acknowledged by the various levels of government. While President Roosevelt unofficially rescinded Executive Order 9066 in late 1944, it was only in 1976 that it officially ended through a proclamation by President Ford. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan issued an apology and authorized compensation.

The Japanese-American Citizens League (JACL) played a significant role in advocating for rights and remembrance. In 2022, President Biden officially recognized February 19th as the Day of Remembrance of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II. The Japanese-American community's efforts to remember and educate led to including War Relocation Centers in the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s. Seattle hosted the first Day of Remembrance celebration in 1978, and twenty-five years later, Washington State officially recognized the Day of Remembrance.

Harmony's journey to find a home was not straightforward. The Puyallup Valley JACL faced resistance from the State Fairgrounds board, which eventually allowed the monument's installation in 1983. Nearly thirty years later, in 2016, with funding from the Japanese-American Citizens League, a plaque was commissioned to add a description and context to the existing sculpture.

The Harmony sculpture is a modest yet powerful reminder of the Japanese-American experience during World War II. The State did not commission it as a public apology for past deeds. It was a privately funded Japanese-American venture created by a local Japanese-American artist directly influenced by these past events. In many ways, the slow acceptance of an on-site monument, the sparse private funding, the modest surroundings, and the limited exposure of the Harmony sculpture represent the continued struggle that the Japanese-American community encounters for a more substantial commemoration of World War II internment camps. This grassroots initiative reflects their constant desire for acknowledgment and a place in the public discourse regarding their past sufferings.

(edited by Jennifer Schaper)

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The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, provoked an external reaction by the United States government against the Imperial Government of Japan and an internal response by American authorities against persons of Japanese ancestry, including Japanese American citizens.

The American declaration of war against Japan following Pearl Harbor was soon followed by a presidential declaration of exclusion against Japanese Americans residing on the country's west coast. These Americans were collectively declared a potential threat to national security during World War II (WWII), evacuated from the west coast, and sent to concentration camps. Despite being reviled and ostracized during this period in American history, Japanese Americans persevered and were eventually honored with a national memorial in Washington, DC, at the beginning of the 21st century. The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During WWII is a unique, dual-purpose national memorial that tells the story of a grievously mistreated group of people but also of a nation attempting to acknowledge and make amends for the injustice perpetrated against its citizens. The Memorial also demonstrates the malleability of the American collective memory, evolving from a view of Japanese Americans as treacherous and untrustworthy to one now of a heroic and patriotic group that merited a national memorial. As such, the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism highlights the power of monuments to honor and provide healing and be redemptive.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively ended Chinese immigration resulting in a large influx of Japanese immigrants in the western portion of the United States. U.S. Census figures indicated an exponential increase from 2,039 Japanese arrivals in 1890 to 110,010 in 1920. This mass migration prompted a strong reaction from a West Coast American populace again taken aback by another large wave of Asian immigrants. As Japanese immigrants replaced the Chinese as cheap labor, they were racialized and vilified, with scholar Kristin Has stating the anti-Asian mood was best summed by San Francisco Mayor James Phelan, who said that "[Japanese immigrants] must be excluded because they are non-assimilable; they are a permanently foreign element…in time of trial they will not fight for Uncle Sam, but betray him to the enemy." This backlash led to a series of actions designed to limit immigration and the owning or leasing land for those already here.

These events helped set the stage for a confluence of events that would lead to the complete marginalization of Japanese Americans and the egregious violation of their civil rights by a federal government that cast aside constitutional norms following the surprise-attack bombing of Pearl Harbor. War hysteria and fears of domestic espionage or sabotage magnified anti-Japanese sentiment and prompted politicians to request federal action against a perceived domestic Japanese threat. Daniels notes that California Attorney General (and future Supreme Court Justice) Earl Warren warned that the Japanese situation in California was the "Achilles heel of the entire civilian defense effort." At the same time, the West Coast congressional delegation urged the removal of "all persons of Japanese lineage, aliens and citizens alike, from the strategic areas of California, Oregon and Washington." The political pressure urged President Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which authorized the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast.

The United States government ended up forcibly removing and incarcerating approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in ten isolated internment camps scattered throughout the country. Individuals had to fire-sell or simply abandon their personal belongings, property, and businesses, with some families being separated and sent to different camps. Most were placed in minimal, shared living quarters, usually barracks, with no privacy. Internee Bill Hosokawa described the living arrangements as "rude, crowded, uncomfortable chicken coops that passed for residential quarters" and an "appalling experience of confinement behind barbed wire in a concentration camp."

Despite the U.S. government classifying Japanese individuals as enemy aliens, it did not preclude willing Japanese-Americans from fighting for the United States in the war. In 1943, the War Department authorized the formation of the all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), composed of Japanese American volunteers, which became the most decorated military unit, for its size and length of service, in American military history. Additionally, a select group of Japanese Americans formed to serve as translators for the Military Intelligence Service in the Asian theater, where they would monitor enemy communications, translate captured Imperial Japanese military documents and interrogate captured soldiers. The distinguished Japanese American military service during World War II would play an essential role in the eventual rehabilitation of the Japanese American community during the postwar years.

After the war, Japanese Americans worked to rebuild their shattered economic lives, pursue educational opportunities, and reintegrate themselves back into American society. In the late 1960s and 1970s, during the social turmoil generated by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, the next generation of Japanese Americans began to assert themselves. A key milestone in the redress came to fruition on July 31, 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) Act into law. The empowered Commission extensively reviewed government documents pertaining to the Japanese internment decision and heard the wrenching testimonies of many incarcerated Japanese Americans. In December 1982, the CWRIC released a 467-page report titled Personal Justice Denied. It concluded that "Executive Order 9066 was not justified by military necessity….The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership…A grave injustice was done to American citizens and resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who….were excluded, removed and detained by the United States during World War II." Six months later, the CWRIC recommended that the United States Congress and President offer a national apology to the interned Japanese Americans and compensation of $20,000 to each surviving evacuee and internee. These recommendations were not official until President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. The Act, and the subsequent appropriation authorizing redress payments, marked an important step in the rehabilitation and redemption of Japanese Americans within American society.

Go For Broke National Veterans Association, a Japanese American WWII veterans' group, organized the effort to secure a national memorial on federal land following the passage of the Civil Liberties Act. They enlisted the help of Japanese American politicians, most notably WWII veteran Senator Daniel Inouye and former internee Congressman Norman Mineta, to honor the veterans that fought in the war. However, the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission (NCMAC) discouraged the proposal to erect a strictly military monument, stating that future commemorative works should demonstrate the lasting national significance of the subject involved. To address the concerns of the NCMAC, the federal representatives revised their proposal from being a purely military celebration of service to being a cautionary tale, "a grave reminder of what we are capable of in times of crisis." NCMAC accepted the revised proposal that "shifted from a single military focus to one embracing the larger events surrounding the Japanese American people as a whole."

The Memorial, designed by architect Davis Buckley and dedicated on November 9, 2000, has a circular walkway bordered by walls containing the names of the incarceration camps and the number of people confined there. Next, visitors see a wall of honor that includes the names of the approximately 800 Japanese American soldiers who died during World War II. The centerpiece of the Memorial is a sculpture of two cranes entangled in barbed wire, symbolizing the plight of the incarcerated Japanese Americans. The space also contains a large reflecting pool containing five boulders, representing the number of generations of Japanese Americans alive at the time of signing of the Civil Liberties Act.

The Memorial serves the dual purpose of commemorating the sacrifice of incarcerated Japanese American citizens while also honoring the ultimate sacrifice of Japanese American soldiers who served despite the discriminatory actions of the American government. It highlights the fortitude and loyalty of the Japanese American citizenry by equating their sacrifices with heroism and patriotism. Moreover, the Memorial also recognizes a nation attempting to make amends for its unjust treatment of Japanese Americans during the war. Upon arriving, visitors read Ronald Reagan's inscribed words, spoken during the signing of the Civil Liberties Act, "Here we admit a wrong. Here we affirm our commitment to equal justice under the law." This admission of national guilt is also redemptive, for it demonstrates the nation's ability and willingness to recognize and atone for its sins and to reaffirm its commitment to constitutional ideals. Congressman and former internee Robert Matsui's inscription reinforces this point by stating, "Our actions are essential for giving credibility to our constitutional system and reinforcing our tradition of justice."

(Edited by Brad Poss and Laura Bailey)

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