Ceremony will commemorate Day of Exile at Ober Park

Mukai Farm Garden will mark the 83rd anniversary of the Day of Exile.

By Mary Rabourn For Mukai Farm & Garden • May 15, 2025 9:30 am
Islander Joe Okimoto, one of the Americans who was unconstitutionally uprooted and forced away from home in 1942, speaks at Ober Park during the 2024 Day of Exile commemoration. (Alex Bruell photo)
Islander Joe Okimoto, one of the Americans who was unconstitutionally uprooted and forced away from home in 1942, speaks at Ober Park during the 2024 Day of Exile commemoration. (Alex Bruell photo)

Mukai Farm & Garden will mark the 83rd anniversary of the Day of Exile with a short program from 11 a.m. to noon on Sunday, May 18 at Ober Park.

Eighty-three years ago, 111 Vashon Island residents of Japanese descent had 48 hours’ notice to report to Ober Park. They were to be forcibly deported from their homes, as directed by Executive Order 9066. On that day, May 16, 1942, persons of Japanese descent were trucked to a ferry with no idea of what would happen to them.

The families were put onto a sweltering train with blackened windows for a four-day trip. The Vashon residents had been shipped to the Pinedale “Assembly Center,” in the middle of a desert near Fresno, California. Only one-third of them would return to their island homes after the war.

Friends of Mukai, the Vashon Heritage Museum, the Puget Sound Zen Center, the Vashon Parks District and the Vashon Library will host the commemoration of that exiling and incarceration which began at Ober Park. A brief program will be followed by the ringing of a traditional temple bell to honor each of the exiled families.

At the ceremony, Mukai Farm & Garden will also reveal the new Ober Park Nikkei Memorial installation design by Vashon artist Miya Sukune. Ms. Sukune will share her design concepts for the sculpture.

The installation will honor the 111 Vashon residents of Japanese descent expelled from their island homes on May 16, 1942 in response to Executive Order 9066. Members of the Sakai family (Sumi Sakai’s camp suitcase is on display at Mukai Farm & Gardens), and the Matsuda family, whose farm is now being managed by the Vashon Land Trust, will be featured on the installation.

Activities on May 18 will include:

• 10:30 a.m.: Vashon Library Story Time with artist Miya Sukune and Amelia Lincoln Ecevedo, reading “Love in the Library” and craft-making.

• 11 a.m.: Program begins at Ober Park.

• 12:30 p.m.: An Author Talk with Kiku Hughes on “The Power of Memory.” Hughes is a Japanese American (Yonsei) cartoonist based in the Seattle area. Her first graphic novel, Displacement, published by First Second in 2020 and was an APALA Literature Award honor title and an Eisner Award nominee. Her work explores themes of identity, queer romance, soft sci-fi and anti-capitalist futures.

The Vashon Library will also feature a book display related to the forced removal and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Descendants of the Matsuda family, a Vashon farming family, will attend the Day of Exile event. In 2015, the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust purchased the Matsuda Farm to keep it a working farm; you can learn more about their work and the Matsuda story at vashonlandtrust.org/matsudafarm and walkthefarm.org/matsuda-farms.

Learn more about Mukai Farm & Garden at mukaifarmandgarden.org.