SACRAMENTO, Calif. — To bring awareness of the injustice done to Japanese people forced into interment camps during World War II, members of Sacramento's Parkview Presbyterian Church set a goal of making 125,000 paper cranes.
“This is a part of a national movement where we are folding cranes as a show of solidarity and a way to protest against tensions of immigrants,” church member Kaitlin Toyama said.
Toyama said the cranes will be sent to Washington D.C. for a national rally in June.
“There all these news stories about detention of immigrants. It really hit home for our community because it’s something we went through back in World War II. We were unjustly incarcerated without due process and we see that happening again with immigrant families,” Toyama said.
Hachiro Yashumra lived inside the fences of concentrations camps in the 1940s. He was forced out of his Los Angeles County home into an Arkansas concentration camp with his family at the age of 5.
“My parents were bewildered about what was happening," Yashumra said. "We were all rounded up and forced to live in these horse stables that were converted into living places, getting on a train with all the shades drawn down so we couldn’t see outside.”
Yashumra said when he and his family were released from the camp the world outside was less than accepting.
“I remember my older brother was in middle school when we came out. He got into so many fights because of the taunting and name calling. That happened to a lot of people of Japanese ancestry,” he said.
On Feb. 20, several Japanese internment camp survivors stood on the California Assembly floor as lawmakers unanimously passed House Resolution 77. The resolution formally apologizes for the state's role during the war.
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Japanese internment camp survivors stood on the California Assembly floor as lawmakers unanimously passed House Resolution 77.