The inaugural Japanese American community pilgrimage to Bismarck, N.D. on Friday, Sept. 5, will celebrate completion of the Snow Country Prison Japanese American Internment Memorial.
The memorial honors the history of Japanese Americans interned in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Fort Lincoln camp in Bismarck, who were demonized as “enemy aliens” during World War II.
The memorial is a project of one of the oldest Native American colleges, United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), and descendants of internees, and was designed by the social-justice architectural firm MASS Design Group. Members of the public and internee descendants are welcome to participate.
In the months after Pearl Harbor, the Alien Enemies Act was used to intern approximately 1,200 Issei immigrants at the Bismarck site, and in the final months of the war, 750 Nisei and Kibei dissidents from Tule Lake who renounced their U.S. citizenship were interned as they awaited deportation as “enemy aliens.”
The memorial program is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. in the MASS-designed memorial located of the courtyard of the historic barrack building where Japanese Americans lived while interned at Bismarck, and will open with a Native American ground blessing of the site.
The program will include descendants of those interned at Bismarck, and tribal and local officials who will speak to the significance of the site and honor the internees.
The program will be followed by a presentation by Dr. Satsuki Ina about her new book “The Poet and the Silk Girl,” discussion of the internments at Bismarck, and a showing of “Defiant to the Last,” a film about Tule Lake’s renunciants.
To commemorate the memorial dedication, The Irei Project developed by Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams is offering appointments on Sept. 5 and 6 to stamp the Ireichō, the book monument that names 125,284 individuals of Japanese ancestry who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Stamping is by appointment only. Go to https://ireizo.org/tour/ and click on the North Dakota, Fort Lincoln site to request an appointment.
Pilgrimage attendees who RSVP have a special opportunity to join the annual International Powwow being held on the UTTC campus the weekend of Sept. 5-7.
To RSVP or request more information, email snowcountrypilgrimage@gmail.com.