Educator Notes Similarities Between Fukushima Evacuee Housing, WWII Internment Camps

Participating in the 2013 Japanese American Leadership Delegation produced recurring themes of breaking silence, resilience, empowering leadership and gaman, a Japanese term for enduring unbearable situations with dignity and patience, for one Arlington woman.

Amy Yamashiro, a data specilist with the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families, applied for the leadership program and was selected to visit Japan for three weeks during March. She joined nine other delegates from across the United States.

“After meeting with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado, and the other dignitaries, I have taken on a personal and heartfelt commitment to continue serving as an international goodwill ambassador between the U.S. and Japan,” Yamashiro said in a reflection.

During her time in Japan with the other delegates, Yamashiro toured Fukushima, the site of a nuclear meltdown two years ago triggered by a devastating tsunami.

The similarity between the temporary housing in Fukushima and the Japanese American internment camps in America during World War II shocked Yamashiro.

“The striking visual similarity of the temporary housing of the evacuees and the internment camp experience underscores the common ground that we as Japanese Americans intuitively had with the people of Fukushima such that we could bond with the evacuees at multiple levels from the sudden disruption of life, the relocation experience, living indefinitely in the diaspora, and yearning for what was lost,” Yamashiro said.

Read more about Yamashiro and her trip here.