CORVALLIS - Oregon State University students will hold a two-day vigil Feb 18-19 to recognize the 60th anniversary of Executive Order 9066, which led to the internment of 130,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, students dressed in period clothing of the 1940s plan to assemble in a line in the OSU Memorial Union Concourse to focus attention on the importance of remembering the World War II experiences of Japanese Americans. Literature and displays with information about the era will also be available.

At 7 p.m. on Feb. 20, the OSU Asian Cultural Center will host a free showing of "Snow Falling on Cedars," a 1999 Scott Hicks film adaptation of the 1994 David Guterson novel. The story recounts the tale of a Japanese-American fisherman being tried for the murder of a man on a foggy night in the Pacific Northwest about 1950. The film also documents the treatment of the Japanese sparked by World War II. The cultural center is located at Jackson Avenue and Arnold Way.

The Feb. 19, 1942, anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin Roosevelt is now known as the National Day of Remembrance. The order kept thousands of Japanese Americans - two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens by birth - behind barbed wire in detention facilities during World War II.

OSU's Asian/Pacific American Education Office and the Asian Cultural Center sponsor the remembrance program. For information, contact Sandy Tsuneyoshi in the education office at 541-737-9033, or the cultural center at 541-737-6361.

The first National Day of Remembrance was held in 1998 at the Smithsonian Institution Museum of American History in partnership with the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.

Source: 

Asian Cultural Center, 541-737-6361

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