What Portland Means to Me
Every time I return to Portland, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia. It is more than memories of my childhood—it is a journey back to my family's story.
I had a privileged and happy upbringing. Looking back now, I realize that my mother worked tirelessly to give my brothers, sister, and me every opportunity she never had herself. Like most mothers, she wanted a better life for her children. But for my mother, that desire ran much deeper.
She and my father had both experienced one of the darkest chapters in American history.
The remarkable thing is that they never talked about it.
Not once, during my childhood, did my parents tell us about being incarcerated during World War II because they were Americans of Japanese ancestry. I first learned about it when I was seventeen years old.
One afternoon in my high school social studies class, our teacher dimmed the lights and began a documentary. That wasn't unusual—we often watched historical films. But this one was different.
The film showed Japanese American families in Portland being ordered to leave their homes with only what they could carry. They were gathered together, placed on trains, and transported to the Minidoka incarceration camp in Idaho, where they would spend years living in crude barracks behind barbed wire.
To learn more about the Portland Assembly Center featured in this story, explore the historical records available through the Oregon History Project.
Source: Oregon History Project (Oregon Historical Society)
Learn more: Japanese Evacuees, Portland Assembly Center
These were not people living in Japan.
These were Americans from my hometown.
I remember sitting there in complete disbelief. My face turned bright red with embarrassment because I knew nothing about it. I had heard my parents mention "friends from camp," but in my mind I had always imagined Girl Scout camp or YWCA camp. I had no idea they were referring to incarceration camps where families had lost their homes, businesses, freedom, and dignity.
Before we had time to process the first film, a second documentary began. It was even more heartbreaking. Then the bell rang.
Everyone quietly gathered their books and left for their next class.
No discussion.
No questions.
By Monday morning, we had moved on to another lesson, and the subject was never mentioned again.
After cheerleading practice that afternoon, my mother picked me up as she always did.
The moment I got into the car, I looked at her and asked,
"You weren't in those camps... were you?"
"What camps?" she answered quietly.
"Those prison camps!"
Then, with all the confidence and innocence of a seventeen-year-old who believed the world was fair, I demanded,
"Why did you let them do that? Why didn't you protest?"
It would take many years before I understood the answer.
My parents weren't trying to erase their Japanese heritage.
They were trying to protect us.
My mother never taught us Japanese because she never wanted us to feel we were anything other than Americans. Instead, she immersed us in our community. She became my Girl Scout leader. I became a cheerleader, a student leader, and one of the popular girls in school. She wanted us to belong completely—to never experience the prejudice she had endured.
Only later did I realize that every opportunity she created for us was her quiet victory over the injustice she had lived through.
To this day, I become emotional whenever I think about that period in American history, when my parents and grandparents were denied the rights guaranteed to every citizen and were herded onto trains bound for an unknown future simply because of their ancestry.
During this trip home, a childhood friend took me to Portland's waterfront to see something I had never seen before—a fountain dedicated to my father by the Portland Lions Club and the Sapporo Lions Club in celebration of the sister-city relationship between Portland and Sapporo. It was dedicated in 1994 for the 35th anniversary of that friendship.
Standing there, I could not hold back my tears.
My father, who had once been treated as someone who did not fully belong, was later honored by the very city he loved.
In that moment, I felt overwhelming gratitude—not only for my parents, but also for my grandparents, whose strength, dignity, and quiet perseverance made my life possible.
They never allowed bitterness to define them.
Instead, they taught us to be proud of both our American citizenship and our Japanese heritage.
That is what Portland means to me.
It is not simply the city where I grew up.
It is the place where my family's story of injustice, resilience, forgiveness, and hope all come together.
