June 4, 2025
Last month, we joined a special gathering of the Seattle Japanese American community hosted by Tsuru for Solidarity. Around 150 people came together to reflect on the connections between the current moment and the history of Japanese American WWII incarceration — and how we can unite to fight for justice for targeted people today. Joe Okimoto, a Nisei survivor of Poston and a member of Tsuru for Solidarity, shared a few words about how he is experiencing history repeating itself and the importance of people power in moments like these.
Joe’s reflections are deeply personal, urgent, and rooted in lived experience. While the views expressed in his speech are his own, we present them here as part of our ongoing commitment to preserving community voices and providing historical context for contemporary dialogues about the legacy of Japanese American WWII incarceration. Densho publishes guest opinion essays that draw meaningful connections between this history and the present, and that promote equity and justice today. Learn more about our work and mission here.
In 1942, a few months after Pearl Harbor, U.S. soldiers with rifles and bayonets came to our home in San Diego, California, and ordered my family and me onto the back of an army truck that took us to the Santa Anita temporary prison camp. There was no Due Process where we could defend ourselves against any charges. And there was a great deal of fear in the Japanese American community because no one knew what was going to happen to us.
When we entered the prison camp, my family included my parents, who immigrated to America as Christian ministers in 1937, my two older siblings aged 5 and 7, born in Tokyo, and me, age 3, born in America. My mother was six months pregnant and gave birth to my younger brother under primitive living conditions. We were later sent to the desert of Arizona to the Poston concentration camp for three-and-a-half grueling years.
You might ask, “How is history repeating itself?” Today there is a great deal of fear in the immigrant community and even in the university foreign student population. Instead of soldiers, ICE agents in masks are abducting people off the streets and sending them to isolated detention centers or a foreign concentration camp. These prisoners are not afforded Due Process much like we experienced. But recently, the Supreme Court has ruled that these residents should be allowed Due Process.
In 1942, Executive Order 9066 was clearly based on race, as it applied only to persons of Japanese ancestry. A Congressional Commission in 1983 concluded that the executive order was a tragic error based on Racism, War Hysteria and Failed Political Leadership. Currently, persons being targeted are primarily persons of color, and in my view, this is a form of Ethnic Cleansing. And we are not at war with any nation, so the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798 does not apply, as concluded recently by a federal judge in Texas. In 1942, the AEA was used as the basis for incarcerating Japanese Americans. And as far as political leadership goes… we are currently seeing criminal behavior warranting impeachment.
But the political scene is even more grave than in 1942 when America was under attack by a foreign country. Today, the attack on America is from within! There is an assault on the foundations of our Democracy, and what is preventing our slide into a Dictatorship at the moment is the Judicial system and the people of America. Numerous court judgments have found the Trump administration in violation of federal laws and the Constitution. In addition, concerned and outraged citizens are protesting in small towns and large cities in all 50 states. Despite this, the Trump administration has not complied with these court judgments and we appear to be heading towards a Constitutional Crisis. It may ultimately come down to us — People Power — to force the administration to follow the Rule of Law.
So, what is important today is the message that we as a community have an opportunity to protest what the government is doing to our people and to put a stop to this. In 1942, there were no protests, only a few voices futilely speaking out. Our community can be a Voice that was missing in 1942!
We cannot allow history to be repeated! Power to the people!
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Joe Okimoto is a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard Medical Schools and completed a Psychiatry Residency at UW. In addition to his private practice of Psychiatry, he was Medical Director of ACRS (1976-87) and Swedish Eating Disorder Unit (1991-2000). He retired from practice in 2016 and currently lives with his wife, Jeanie Okimoto, on Vashon Island. They have four children and six grandchildren.
[Header: Members of Tsuru for Solidarity stage a protest outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Courtesy of Tsuru for Solidarity.]
