If They Came for Me Today: The Japanese American Internment Project
Legacy of Life in the Camps
Exhibition shares stories of 15 Japanese Americans interned during WWII
Community Works’ exhibit If They Came For Me Today: The Japanese American Internment Project highlights the stories of 15 local Japanese Americans whose lives were impacted by the internment of Japanese American citizens in camps during World War II.
In 1942, following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066, some 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast were moved into internment camps for the duration of the war. They were allowed to take only the possessions they could carry and were forced to abandon their businesses and personal property. The legacy of that experience is explored in If They Came For Me Today: The Japanese American Internment Project, a powerful living history exhibition documenting the experiences of Japanese American internees. This multimedia exhibition, developed by Community Works with students at George Washington, Balboa, and Horace Mann schools in San Francisco, honors those who were interned or impacted by the internment. Drawing on the oral histories of Japanese Americans who were themselves interned or whose parents were internees, the students worked to create a unique exhibition that simultaneously chronicles the experiences of one generation and the reactions of another. The organizers hope to bring the exhibition to thousands of Bay Area students, inspiring further dialogue about the internment and its impact on all of our lives today.
The message of If They Came For Me Today is powerful: Civil injustice resonates for generations. After hearing the stories of the 15 men and women affected by the internment, the students produced written, visual, and video art relating interviewees’ stories to their own personal experiences and to contemporary and historical instances of civil injustice. Their work is featured in the exhibition, along with suitcases full of artifacts from detainees, photographs, and biographies of the honorees.
Funding for this project was provided by the California Arts Council, San Francisco Department of Children Youth and Families, San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, San Francisco Foundation, Friends of the San Francisco Library, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Note: Photographs and interviews with internees are available.
The Japanese American Internment honors:
Dianne Fukami
Philip Kan Gotanda
Sato Hashizume
Chizu Iiyama
Ernie Iiyama
Ginger Masuoka
Janice Mirikitani
Esther Oda
Ruth Okimoto
Emiko Omori
Toru Saito
Morgan Yamanaka
George Yoshida
Sox Kitashima (deceased)
and Mary Masamitsu
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