‘Never again is now’: Event links past and present, offers hope

The Yasuis come to Idlewilde each year to clean gravestones and tell stories “of where we’ve come from, where we are and where we’re going, trying to learn from the past and [asking] how we get to a better future,” Yasui said.

This year, it also included guest speakers reflecting on the “We are Immigrants. Somos Inmigrantes” campaign recently launched by Riverside Community Church, approved by all 63 members of the Yasui family.

The message: The repeated use of the Alien Enemies Act against those of Japanese ancestry during World War II is again being used against other immigrants, primarily Latinos, in 2025.

Riverside and its partners began distributing the bright yellow “We are Immigrants. Somos Inmigrantes” signs to homes and businesses in March, and more than a dozen were placed on gravesites at the May 24 event by Ray and Mikie’s great-grandchildren, Cooper, Mack, Rayla, Aya, and Ren Yasui.

“Unfortunately, much of the fear and scapegoating and hatred that was prevalent a number of generations ago is rearing its ugly head again, and our political leaders are using that to foment a great deal of fear,” Riverside Pastor Vicky Stifter said. “We don’t have a particular immigration policy that we’re trying to push with the campaign, we are simply saying, ‘We are all immigrants, and we will not let those who have arrived more recently and maybe of a different color stand alone.’”

Also speaking were Peggy Nagae, one of the founders of the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project and lead attorney in Yasui v. United States that re-opened his Supreme Court case; Linda Tamura, local historian, author and professor; and Graciela Gomez, an immigrant who spoke in both English and Spanish, with interpretation provided by Lorena Sprager.

Now a citizen, Gomez came to the U.S. as a young girl with her family to work. “I don’t have the opportunity to go to be educated, so I work all my life, picking cherries, picking apples, picking pears, everything in the fields,” she said.

“We’ve come here seeking a dream, and it has turned into a nightmare,” Gomez said, adding that young people are afraid their parents are going to be taken.

“… These signs give us hope, that there are good people who care about us, that love us, that unite with us. When I see those signs, it gives me hope in my heart,” she said.

To close, Arborist Tyler Roth wrapped a yellow ribbon around one of two ginkgo peace trees located at Idlewilde, propagated from seeds of a tree that survived the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima during World War II; he was joined by Tamura and Gomez in placing another of the “We are Immigrants. Somos Inmigrantes” signs at its base. Bishop Diana Akiyama, Episcopal Diocese of Oregon, offered closing thoughts.

“Do not let yourselves become isolated,” she said. “We have to stick together. Don’t let fear take over. Love always prevails. And as we know that famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”