WEST SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - “As we lose the few remaining survivors of these wartime concentration camps, how can we ensure that their struggles are not forgotten? It is incumbent upon us younger generations to tell their stories, so that the public never forgets.” – Kenji Taguma

A Day of Remembrance for the Japanese American community was proclaimed by West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero this past Saturday in a special ceremony.  In front of City Hall, the 80^th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066,) given by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt that uprooted some 120,000 people of Japanese descent, was remembered by family members and their descendants from West Sacramento and surrounding area. Most were American citizens and were incarcerated into American concentration camps during World War II. Their only crime was their ethnicity.

This Day of Remembrance was to not only recognize this act in an over-all sense, but to acknowledge that according to the 1940 census, there were some 300 persons of Japanese descent in the Washington Judicial Township, which included Broderick, Bryte and West Sacramento. The gathering of these people included about 25 Japanese American families that lived and worked on the Todhunter Ranch, located at what is now Riverbank Elementary School.

These families were given a matter of days to close their businesses, sell their assets and priceless cultural artifacts and allowed to bring only what they could carry on a terrifying unknown journey. It first took them to a converted fairgrounds, known as the Merced Assembly Center and then to the desolate Granada (Amache) Concentration Camp, in southwestern Colorado.

Kenji Taguma grew up in West Sacramento. By the time he was living in West Sacramento (some 40 years later), Todhunter Ranch was Golden State Middle School. Kenji explained that growing up he dealt with a lot of racial comments. He recalls being embarrassed of his ethnic heritage, actually hiding when his mom would call his name or speak to him in Japanese at the market.

However, in order to graduate from River City High School, he was forced to do a term paper on the Japanese American incarceration experience. He was awakened to the struggles, sacrifice and heroism that his family had faced, he explained. Kenji’s family was among those that were forcibly taken from their homes in West Sacramento and placed into these camps.

Kenji began to learn that many of the men were then drafted and forced to defend the civil liberties that had been taken from them. One veteran of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team included longtime West Sacramento Elementary School Principal Dick Uno, who served as principal at Arlington, Westfield, and then Westmore Oaks Elementary Schools in West Sacramento until he retired in 1984.

In college, Kenji learned of his father’s experience. Kenji’s father, Noboru Taguma, was one of 35 young men in the Granada (Amache) Concentration Camp who refused to be drafted from behind barbed wire fences. At the time, the Nisei (2^nd generation Japanese American born family) were draft resisters and considered “cowards” by “community leaders.” These men received federal sentences.

“Many were ostracized, like my father, who lost his job at the fish market,” Kenji said. “All they were doing was fighting for their Constitutional Rights. Today these men are considered heroes for standing up for their civil rights.”

Kenji was joined at the press conference by family members holding pictures of their parents, Bill and Michiyo (Tateishi) Taguma, born right here in Broderick in addition to Kenji’s father. Christine and Stan Umeda, who were in the camps as children, were also there.

In part, the proclamation read: “…the City of West Sacramento recognizes the need for more public awareness of these events.” It also acknowledged, “the deep pain and suffering caused by the actions of the City of West Sacramento in perpetuating fear, hatred and racist discrimination toward the Japanese-American community both pre and post WWII and that the City of West Sacramento recognizes its role in condoning the forced removal of Japanese Americans in West Sacramento and vicinity during WWII and vows to ensure such acts will never be repeated again.”

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