« All Events

Densho (Out of Many, One display)

June 11 - September 17
Poster reads: 'To all persons of JAPANESE ancestry and FRIENDS The Memory of One Hundred Twenty Thousand Three Hundred and Thirteen Issei, Nisei, Sansei and others of Japanese ancestry request the pleasure of your company for A DAY OF REMEMBERANCE Remember the concentration camps stand for redress with your family on Saturday, November 25, 1978 JOIN THE CARAVAN at 12 Noon - Sick's Stadium Parking Lot Rainier Ave S. and McClellan and ride to what was once "Camp Harmony" and home to 7,200 Japanese Americans. ENTER PUYALLUP FAIRGROUNDS at 2 PM and Raise the flag over Camp Harmony to remember the years of hardship Japanese America endured to make the United States home for their parents, themselves, their children, and all the Nikkei generations to come.'

Poster for the first Day of Remembrance

This poster advertised the first Day of Remembrance, held in Seattle and Puyallup, Washington, on November 25, 1978. The event brought Japanese American families and community members back to the Puyallup Fairgrounds, the site of the wartime Puyallup Assembly Center, also known euphemistically as “Camp Harmony,” where many Japanese Americans from the Seattle area were first confined during World War II. The poster is part of the Frank Abe Collection in the Densho Digital Repository.

 

How it represents the community’s American experience:

This poster represents a central part of the Japanese American community’s American experience: the struggle to remember, name, and seek justice for a history that had long been silenced or minimized. During World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated by the U.S. government without due process. For decades after the war, many families carried this history privately, while public narratives often relied on euphemisms such as “evacuation” or “relocation.”

The first Day of Remembrance changed that. By returning to Puyallup, families transformed a site of confinement into a place of remembrance, education, and activism. The poster’s invitation to “stand for redress with your family” also shows how memory was passed across generations. Parents, children, and grandchildren gathered not only to remember what happened, but also to demand accountability from the nation that had violated their civil rights.

This item reflects an American experience shaped by exclusion, resilience, intergenerational storytelling, and civic action. It shows how Japanese Americans challenged historical denial and helped expand public understanding of democracy, constitutional rights, and government responsibility. Today, Days of Remembrance continue to take place across the country as annual gatherings for education, community memory, and organizing around civil rights and justice for all.

 

On display at the Seattle Public Library’s International District Chinatown Branch, Saturday–Thursday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., June 11–September 17, 2026.

Details

Organization

Venue

Related Events