Japanese Americans walk from Seattle to Tacoma to protest immigrant detention

A small group of Japanese Americans is walking from Seattle to Tacoma this week to draw a line between today's immigrant detention and the World War II incarceration of people of Japanese descent. The four-day pilgrimage is organized by Tsuru for Solidarity. It covers more than 45 miles and ends with a rally at 1 p.m. Saturday outside the detention center in Tacoma.

Following the route of detention

About a dozen walkers started Wednesday at Hing Hay Park in Seattle. They stopped at King County International Airport where detained immigrants are flown in and out and at the ICE field office in Tukwila. They also visited the Puyallup Fairgrounds where a temporary camp held Japanese Americans in 1942 while a permanent one was built in Idaho. Marchers carried signs reading "Not OK in 42! Not OK Now" and sang a call-and-response chant that ends with "Kodomo no tame ni" which means "for the sake of the children."

Executive Order 9066 in 1942 led to the forced removal and incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese descent and about 70% of them were U.S. citizens. Co-founder Mike Ishii said the pilgrimages draw on the nonviolent marches of the Civil Rights Movement. The group began this tour with a walk to the Dilley detention center in Texas and plans stops in San Francisco and Honolulu.

Survivors speak

Satsuki Ina is 82 and was born in the Tule Lake camp. She sat in a lawn chair at the Tukwila office because she is too old to walk the miles and said she sees familiar scenes repeating. She became an immigrant rights activist after visiting a family detention center in Texas in 2017.

The Rev. Kenji Akahoshi is 84 and was two weeks old when his family entered the Amache camp in Colorado. He said he felt a responsibility to speak up after learning that immigrant families were being separated. Erin Shigaki whose parents were held at Minidoka in Idaho walked as a volunteer escort. She said she feels empowered by her ancestors.