The APIDA Outdoors Initiative will host a series of events that each address the relationship between the APIDA (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American) community and outdoor recreation through a unique lens of historical context, legal rights, accessibility and spiritual practice.
Day of Remembrance will honor the legal and generational impacts of Japanese incarceration during World War II. Carolynn Classen will be a guest speaker and will present on the story of how Executive Order 9066 affects generations of Japanese Americans. She will also speak on her role in the passing of The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that gave surviving Japanese Americans reparations and a formal apology by President Reagan for their incarceration during World War II.
Students will also have the opportunity to join the Gordon Hirabayashi Excursion with a discussion led by Kenny Wong. During World War II, some prisoners of this camp protested the Japanese American Relocation. Gordon Hirabayashi was a senior at the University of Washington in 1942 who challenged the constitutionality of internment based on race and ancestry. He turned himself in to the FBI rather than report for relocation and was convicted and sentenced to serve at the Federal Honor Camp in the Santa Catalina Mountains, now named after him. The Gordon Hirabayashi Campground Excursion will give students of color the opportunity to learn the history of Hirabayashi vs the United States case and reflect on their own relationship with outdoor recreation.
The initiative has completed 2 events for the Spring semester that explored the relationship between the history of Japanese Incarceration during WWII and outdoor recreational spaces for APIDA communities.
The Day of Remembrance event engaged 24 student attendees and two community members, fostering conversations around historical trauma, resilience, and civil rights advocacy. The Gordon Hirabayashi Excursion drew 31 participants, with strong faculty involvement, providing an immersive learning experience about civil disobedience, outdoor access, and social justice history.
The Gordon Hirabayashi Campground Day Excursion transformed understanding of Japanese incarceration and how the APIDA community views the outdoors. Guest speaker Kenny Wong drew upon his architecture background and provided a guided tour of the campground site and hiking trail. CAPLA Colleague Dr. Beth Wienstien share with students her knowledge from her doctoral research on internment architecture on what internees experienced during relocation. And finally Dr Jacqueline Barrios, professor of the Asian Pacific American Studies, provided an amazing Polaroid activity for participants to engage with their surroundings. Drawing from the history of Dorothea Lange's photo documentation, students were encouraged to use a one shot Polaroid camera to capture what this campground site means to them.
