Procession of Flowers
A group of survivors, descendants, and allies traveled out to Delta, UT to observe the one year anniversary of the removal of the Wakasa Monument from the Topaz site.
Flowers for James Wakasa
To commemorate the 79th anniversary of his killing, April 11, 1943.
Murder in the High Desert
Dir. Emiko Omori | 15 min. | 2022
James Wakasa was shot and killed by a Topaz guard in 1943. 78 years later, a monument built by Issei in camp was found and removed from the site where it had been protected, buried in the cracked earth of Topaz where over 8,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated. No Japanese Americans were present when the monument was dug up in July 2021. Four months later, 12 Japanese Americans were finally able to have a ceremony honoring Wakasa at the site of his murder.
Painting with Fire
This short video is of artist Patrick Hayashi using wax and fire to create paintings of the ephemeral spirit of a man murdered nearly 80 years ago at Topaz Concentration Camp in central Utah.