IN-PERSON EVENT (recording available after)

Satsuki Ina was born in the Tule Lake Concentration Camp and has dedicated much of her life to helping the Japanese American community heal from WWII incarceration – and to fighting to ensure that no other group is subjected to such harm. Ina will present her moving new memoir, “The Poet and the Silk Girl” (Heyday Books, March 2024), in which she recovers the story of how her parents survived and resisted their incarceration in U.S. concentration camps. Drawing from diary entries, heart-wrenching haiku, censored letters, government documents, and clandestine messages, Ina shares the eyewitness dispatches of Shizuko and her newlywed husband Itaru. Their words, interwoven with the ravel of war and Ina’s own retrospective reflection, afford an intimate view into the experiences of those whose lives were upended, by reason of race alone, by Executive Order 9066. She will be joined in conversation by Tom Ikeda, founding executive director of Densho. Support for this event is provided by 4Culture and the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.