Dr. Gail Y. Okawa

MOUNTAINS OF MEMORY, DEPTHS OF GRATITUDE: Remembering the Santa Fe Internment Camp Prisoners and Their American Military Sons

Dr. Gail Y. Okawa, a granddaughter of a Japanese Christian minister interned at the Santa Fe Internment Camp during WWII, will introduce her 18-year book project Remembering Our Grandfathers’ Exile: US Imprisonment of Hawai‘i’s Japanese in World War II in an illustrated talk. Her presentation will share her journey of discovery - learning what happened to hundreds of Japanese immigrants, including her maternal grandfather, arrested immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack and exiled from the Hawaiian Islands to mainland camps like those at Lordsburg and Santa Fe.

Learning, too, the stories of imprisoned immigrant fathers who had sons that fought and, in some cases, died in Europe and the Pacific - heroism that President Harry Truman acknowledged when he proclaimed, “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice, and you have won,” and that the Italians and French in liberated villages have not forgot decades later. Dr. Okawa will interweave wartime stories with present-day remembrances.

Dr. Okawa’s talk will be presented on Zoom. For more information, and the link to watch the presentaion, please visit: nmhistorymuseum.org/programs/events/