On Tuesday, May 16, islanders gathered in an act of remembrance of 124 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from Vashon 75 years ago and put in internment camps, many never to return to the island. Over 200 people of all ages attended.

Mary Matsuda Gruenewald’s heart-breaking account of that day will remain imprinted on me forever: getting the military order to assemble with no more than two suitcases, military men with guns, being packed into trucks and then put on a special ferry.

This was one person’s story of the terrifying beginning of the grave injustice done to many, the harm inflicted on Vashon community life and the offense committed to this nation’s highest ideals.

In this sense the commemoration was an act of solidarity with all people who have suffered past or present injustices simply because they belong to a despised or feared group. In exiling the other — those who “don’t belong”— whether by removal and incarceration or by bans and walls — we exile ourselves.

A big thanks to the organizers of the event. It was a reminder that historical amnesia is a condition deadly to democratic vigilance and that to remember is an act of resistance.

— Rob Crawford