‘Community’s Own Voice’ Tells Story of Internment

Wing Luke Asian Museum director Ron Chew didn’t want the lessons of the Japanese-American internment during World War II to be forgotten.

So with the help of the Japanese-American community, the museum put together a grass-roots history exhibition as a powerful reminder of the price they paid: the economic loss, the loss of faith in American justice and the break-up of a community.

“It was really an opportunity to tell a story through the community’s own voice,” Chew said.

The Wing Luke Asian Museum focuses on the history of all the Asian-American cultures in the Pacific Northwest.

The museum’s show, “Executive Order 9066: 50 Years Before and After,” opened last February on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the order that forced the evacuation and internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast. It closed in Seattle at the end of August and this fall is scheduled to begin a cross-country tour, through 1995.

With roughly 175 photographs pulled from family albums and 200 artifacts, including artwork and furniture unearthed from basements and attics, the exhibit spans 100 years.

There’s a replica of a Minidoka internment-camp barrack--Minidoka was the desolate Idaho camp where most Japanese-Americans from the Northwest were sent.

“It’s educating a whole generation who never knew about (the internment) to understand the ramifications of the war, internment and discrimination of people because of their color and race,” said Bob Santos, executive director of the Chinatown-International District Preservation and Development Authority.

Chew said many internees never shared memories of the internment because it was too painful. But the display helped them begin to talk about it.

“It was a breaking of silence,” he said. “Ultimately, it provided a necessary healing process.”

“It gives the general public a missing piece of history that they had not been taught in the schools or was glossed over by the media’s ignorance of the events,” Chew said.