Satsuki Ina joined about 20 other people who began the walk in Seattle’s International District, all singing a prayer. Ina was born in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. With a cane in one hand she held sign in the other that said “Concentration Camp Survivors” above a photo of two young girls outside barracks in a World War II camp.
“ We’re destroying children’s lives every day. Japanese Americans are still recovering from the trauma of our incarceration 80 years later,” Ina said. “We wanna stop ICE from continuing their racist discrimination and unjust and inhumane treatment of children and families.”
The organizers noted that the Chinatown International District was home to a robust Japantown before World War II.
“Today we’re opening the first day of our 48-mile walk from Seattle’s International District Chinatown, which is also the historic Nihonmachi of the Japanese American community,” said Emily Yoshioka, a key organizer for the pilgrimage in Seattle. She’s also a part of Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American advocacy group, which is organizing similar pilgrimages across the country.
The Seattle route includes stops at key hubs of immigration enforcement in Western Washington including Boeing Field, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Tukwila. They’ll also host a healing ceremony at the Puyallup Fairground, which is the site of a former incarceration camp.
The walk ends Saturday with a public rally at the ICE detention center in Tacoma.