If you're in Los Angeles, join concerned community members in Little Tokyo this Thursday evening to protest the White House's plans to use Fort Sill in Oklahoma as a detention center for immigrant children and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention practices in general.
Organizers are demanding an end to the inhumane conditions at ICE facilities, an end to family separation policies, and for compassion and humanitarianism toward all people. All who share concern about these issues are invited to participate.
It's happening June 27 at 7:00pm on the plaza of the Japanese American National Museum.
During World War II, more than 700 people of Japanese ancestry were unjustly incarcerated at Fort Sill. Earlier, members of the Apache tribe who had been forcibly removed from their ancestral lands were incarcerated there. Further, Fort Sill was a site where Native American children taken from their families were placed in boarding school -- a government attempt to destroy their identity and culture.
"In 1942, Japanese Americans were incarcerated with no due process and forced into sub-standard living conditions in concentration camps. We know concentration camps and these ICE facilities are indeed modern day concentration camps. The White House's plans must spur us into action. Never again is now!" organizers said in a statement.
"We stand in solidarity with those making the journey to Fort Sill to voice their opposition and we will work not only with our own communities, but with other communities to oppose the White House’s inhumane and unjust detention practices. We call on all people to join us in our efforts to stop these detentions."
The protest is organized by East West Players, JACL Pacific Southwest District, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center - JACCC, Japanese American National Museum, Kizuna, Little Tokyo Service Center, Manzanar Committee, Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, Nikkei Progressives, Tuesday Night Project, Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, Vigilant Love, and Visual Communications.
For further information, refer to the Facebook event.
