This past Saturday, February 19th marked the 80th annual Day of Remembrance of Japanese American mass incarceration. Starting Friday and throughout this past weekend, the National Park Service, Smithsonian National Museum of American History and Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation co-hosted a series of free, live, virtual events addressing what happened, how it impacts what's still happening today and what can be done moving forward. We read about Hanako Wakatsuki, a Japanese American author, historian and park ranger who brings a wealth of knowledge to the legacy of what her family and 120,000 Japanese American's endured in the U.S. beginning in early 1942 through the summer of 1945. Over the years, she has shared what she learned at various sites within the national park system, including former camp locations and Pearl Harbor. She is now superintendent of the Honouliuli National Historic Site, which is still in development to preserve Japanese American confinement history in Hawaii. Both the National Park Service and Wakatsuki are intentional about the language they use to share these stories.

"It is important to accurately describe the history of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II without perpetuating euphemistic terms that the U.S. government and others employed at the time, or incorrect terms later substituted that do not adequately describe the injustice experienced by more than 120,000 people," reads Park Service's guidance around language. We cannot and must not ever forget - especially as this
period of history, what happened here,in America.