Japanese-American writers, poets and survivors Toyo Suyemoto and Lawson Inada were honored and celebrated at the "Calls to Remembrance" presentation Tuesday in the Philomathean Room in Towers Hall.
The presentation was a commemoration of the Japanese-American Internment from 1942-1945, a result of the fear caused by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States' subsequent declaration of war.
After Suyemoto's death in 2003, friend and retired Otterbein professor Susan Richardson edited and helped publish Suyemoto's book.
"I Call to Remembrance," Suyemoto's recently published memoir, details her experiences in the internment camps.
Richardson spoke endearingly of Suyemoto, saying how the book makes the reader wonder and "marvel at the ingenuity that she showed --such beauty in a time of despair."
James Bailey, a retired Otterbein professor and longtime friend of Suyemoto, further explained her journey after the closing of the internment camps.
"Toyo moved to Cincinnati in the 1950s and during the decade, lost her mother, father, sister and son," said Baily.
Bailey met Suyemoto at The Ohio State University in 1964.
"I think she adopted me as a friend because I was three years older than her son would have been," he said.
Suyemoto proceeded to write many poems about her son's untimely death, as well as other topics, in her book.
Suyemoto wrote a variety of poetry, including English sonnets and Japanese haiku, said Richardson.
Inada, author of "Before the War: Poems As They Happened," said he and Suyemoto had similar living conditions during their years in the internment camps.
"We lived in hastily erected barracks; she wrote that they dwelled in horse stalls," said Inada.
"Before the War" was the first volume of poetry by an Asian-American author published by a major publishing house.
Suyemoto lived in internment camps in California and Utah, while Inada was moved from California to Arkansas and Colorado.
Toyo Suyemoto donated her extensive collection of papers to the Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at Ohio State shortly before she passed away.
"She couldn't just give a little bit of herself. She had to give a lot; it's simply how she was," said Bailey.
In a decision authorized by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, over 100,000 U.S. residents and citizens of Japanese descent were interned in prison camps against their will.
In 1976, President Gerald Ford censured Executive Order 9066, the order which created "restricted military areas" for some Japanese-Americans. He referred to it as "one of the worst violations of civil liberties in American history."
The Civil Rights Act of 1988, signed by President Ronald Reagan, granted surviving detainees $20,000 each for a total of $1.2 billion.
English professor James Gorman, who helped organize the event, showed a slide of Suyemoto speaking in Otterbein's Philomathean Room several years back. Attendants recognized the connection as they viewed a photo of Suyemoto speaking in the same room where they sat, memorializing her work with the literary event.
The pictures on the screen weren't the only visual aids to help tell Suyemoto's story; displayed on a table was the duffel bag she took to the internment camp some 60 years ago.
