GARDENA — Kanji Sahara spoke about a World War II camp memorial he has proposed for the City of Torrance at the October meeting of the Greater L.A. JACL at Merit Park in Gardena.
The memorial, to be located in a city park, would have an Honor Roll Wall with the names of all those incarcerated in the 10 War Relocation Authority camps plus those interned in the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Army camps. The names would be by camp.
The walls will be made of black granite to resemble the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The “Sites of Shame” will consist of at least 68 camps, listed below.
Temporary Detention Centers
Fresno Fairground
Marysville
Mayer
Merced
Owens Valley
Parker Dam
Pinedale
Pomona
Portland
Puyallup
Sacramento
Salinas
San Bruno
Santa Anita
Stockton
Tulare
Turlock
WRA Camps
Amache
Gila
Heart Mountain
Jerome
Manzanar
Minidoka
Poston
Rohwer
Topaz
Tule Lake
Temporary INS Stations
Boston
Cincinnati
Ellis Island
San Pedro
Seattle
Sharp Park
Tuna Canyon
Permanent INS Camps
Crystal City
Forest Park
Fort Lincoln
Fort Missoula
Fort Stanton
Kenedy
Kooskia
Santa Fe
Seagoville
Army Facilities
Angel Island
Camp Blanding
Camp Forrest
Camp Livingston
Camp Lordsburg
Camp McCoy
Florence
Fort Bliss
Fort Howard
Fort Lewis
Fort Mead
Fort Richardson
Fort Sam Houston
Fort Sill
Griffith Park
Honouliuli
Sand Island
Stringtown
Other Hawaii
Citizen Isolation Centers
Fort Stanton
Leupp
Moab
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Catalina
Fort Leavenworth
McNeil Island
There will also be eight display panels, which will describe each of the camps.
On Dec. 10, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, Sahara and members of the Camp Memorial Committee met with Torrance Mayor Pat Furey to encourage the city of to become the program manager of building the physical wall. The committee would get the names of those incarcerated, make the display panels, and do other tasks on this project.
A person’s name will be on the wall of each camp in which he/she was incarcerated. For example, if a person went from Manzanar to Tule Lake, he/she will be on both the Manzanar and Tule Lake walls. So the incarceration of 110,000 people will result in 160,000 names on the walls. The cost engraving 160,000 names on the black granite panels is estimated at $1.2 million.
The Torrance City Council will vote on becoming the program manager in a February meeting. Sahara, who is active with the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, the Wintersburg Historic Preservation Task Force and other community organizations, plans to visit the councilmembers before the vote.
If you are a Torrance resident and want to visit your councilmember with Sahara, contact him at (310) 539-3733 or saharakanji@gmail.com.