Marking the National Day of Remembrance of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, Mukai Farm & Garden will hold an open house and panel discussion on Sunday, Feb. 25, at 18017 107th Ave. SW.

“Mukai is honored to host this event on this occasion of remembrance to inspire and nurture a more inclusive community,” said Leah Okamoto Mann, who was appointed as Mukai’s executive director in January.

The Day of Remembrance commemorates Feb. 19, 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed his Executive Order 9066 — a racist and deeply harmful response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service in December of 1941.

Roosevelt’s order authorized the forced removal and incarceration of 127,000 people of Japanese descent — 80,000 of whom were American citizens — then living on the West Coast of the United States. These people were taken to internment camps for the duration of the war.

On Vashon, the thriving Japanese American population of the island — more than 100 residents — were forced to evacuate on May 16, 1942, and subsequently incarcerated in the camps.

Of the 132 Vashon islanders of Japanese ancestry who were either imprisoned or voluntarily exiled themselves from the West Coast during the war, only 40 returned after the war, according to local historians.

Mukai Farm & Garden’s open house, from 1-4 p.m. on Feb. 25, will include self-guided tours of the Mukai’s grounds and 1926 farmhouse, which houses a 70-year history of Japanese presence on Vashon — including the deep impact of the internments on Vashon’s Japanese American population.

Following the open house, at 5 p.m., there will be a panel discussion with Dr. Jade Agua and Dr. Joseph Okimoto, focusing on anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments both past and present.

Okimoto is a former Mukai board member and retired psychiatrist with Asian Counseling and Referral Services, in Seattle. He is a son of immigrant parents who came to America from Japan in 1937. He and his family were incarcerated in 1942 at the Poston, Arizona concentration camp for three and a half years as a result of Executive Order 9066.

He will bring this living history to the event.

Agua is vice president of Mukai’s board of directors, and the Chief Learning Officer at the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center. Her presentation will include the historical and current context of anti-Asian, anti-immigrant, and other “anti-other” sentiments that divide the community and too often result in violence.

As part of the evening, there will be a showing of a Dartmouth University “Conversations That Matter” talk featuring Okimoto discussing anti-Japanese propaganda created by Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss.

Both Geisel and Okimoto are graduates of Dartmouth, which houses the Geisel School of Medicine.

All are welcome to attend the Day of Remembrance event at Mukai Farm & Garden, and donations will be accepted. Snacks (Okashi) and beverages will be available.

Contact info@mukaifarmandgarden.org for more information, and visit the organization’s website at mukaifarmandgarden.org.