Never Again

Lynn Fuchigami Longfellow, of the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, addresses a vigil led by Japanese Americans to remember the suffering of Japanese people interned during World War II and to proclaim NO MORE INTERNMENT CAMPS. Not for Muslims. Not for anyone. The vigil was organized by Fuchigami Longfellow’s organization, working with the Portland Japanese American Citizens League and the Japanese Ancestral Society of Oregon. 

Speakers included Native American and Latino clergy, a representative of the local Muslim community, a city councilman, a local high school senior, someone from the Jewish Voice for Peace, an African-American State Senator, and others. The vigil was held at the Japanese-American Historical Plaza in Portland, where the names of the Japanese internment camps are engraved in stone. The speakers’ podium was erected next to the names of the camps. The vigil was held because anxieties are rife since the President-elect declared the use of internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II set a “precedent” for erecting new camps now, for Muslim-Americans. About 250 people attended the vigil, holding candles aloft and declaring, repeatedly, “Never Again.”

Recently Dorothea Lange’s powerful and unforgettable photographs of the camps have been republished.