The 75th commemoration of the US Concentration Camps and incarceration of Japanese Americans was host at the Japanese American United Church in Manhattan and was devoted in support to the Muslim community represented by Imam Khalid Latif. Mike Ishii, member of the Remembrance Committee and coordinator of the event says: “This is a time when people need to come out and be seen and heard in support of unity. We want this to be a gathering of the diversity of NYC in support of civil liberties and in support of our Muslim sisters and brothers”.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942, spurred by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and a fear that Japanese-Americans could be spies or saboteurs. It authorized the forced removal of people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast and their incarceration further inland. Most of the 120,000 people interned were U.S. citizens.

Candlelight Ceremony

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens.

The New York Day of Remembrance Committee, which sponsored the forum, is holding another event from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the La MaMa theater, 66 E. Fourth St., Manhattan. The gathering will include photographs, video, music, art and speeches.