By: Washington’s National Park Fund | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team
In 1977, U.S. Representatives Norman Mineta and Frank Horton introduced legislation to designate ten days in May as Asian and Pacific American Heritage Week. In the U.S. Senate they were joined by Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga. The following year, the federal joint proclamation resolution was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter.
Fourteen years later, in 1992, the extension of Asian and Pacific American Heritage Week to the full month of May was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. Since then, every month of May, our nation honors the history and achievements of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
March 30th of this year marked the 80th anniversary of the first of many forced removals in the United States of people of Japanese ancestry (Nikkei) from their homes and into internment camps during World War II.
On that date in 1942, all Japanese Americans living on Bainbridge Island, Washington, numbering close to 300, were deported to a concentration camp in Manzanar, California, before being transferred to a desolate war relocation center in Minidoka, Idaho, for the remainder of the war. The deportation was the result of an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt a month earlier, which ultimately forced nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans into ten isolated war relocation centers spread across the western U.S.
After the war, about half of the former Nikkei residents of Bainbridge Island returned there to build new lives. The camp at Minidoka and the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial are among a number of National Park Service-administered National Historic Sites in the Pacific Northwest remembering these events. Both sites are very much worth visiting. For Seattle residents, the latter is only a short ferry and bus or bike ride away.
The treatment of Japanese Americans in their own country during World War II is a profoundly shameful episode in the history of our nation, yet it strengthens us in the fervent hope that no one will have to again suffer because of their ancestry: Nidoto Nai Yoni, which translates from the Japanese to “Let It Not Happen Again.”
The story of Japanese Americans, as the stories of all Asian Americans and people of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander ancestry in the U.S. are stories of enormous challenges, including bigotry and discrimination, but also of exceptional resilience, community, and of their rich contributions to this country and its identity.
Join Washington’s National Park Fund, the National Park Service, and our state’s three largest national parks in honoring Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
During Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and throughout the year, the @NatlParkService and our partners share the history and the continuing culture thriving in parks and communities today. https://t.co/N1mnLghRoK#AAPIHeritageMonth pic.twitter.com/6nWmNfKLFi— National Park Service (@NatlParkService) May 2, 2022
During Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and throughout the year, the @NatlParkService and our partners share the history and the continuing culture thriving in parks and communities today. https://t.co/N1mnLghRoK#AAPIHeritageMonth pic.twitter.com/6nWmNfKLFi
For more information and inspiring stories regarding Asian American and Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Heritage Month, check out the National Park Service’s NPS Celebrates! page on Asian American and Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
For more information, check out these recommended resources:
Cover photo: Visitors to Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial honor and recognize the members of their community who spent part of their lives in American concentration camps because of their ancestry. Photo courtesy of NPS.