PROCLAMATION | Day of Remembrance February 19, 2025

||| FROM TOWN OF FRIDAY HARBOR |||

Photo courtesy of the San Juan Historical Museum. Pictured left to right: Edna Hemphill Nash, Beryl Wade, Jack Saoka, John Nash, and Yuki Saoka

Jack and his first wife, Fuji Saoka, moved to the island in 1917. Jack found work at the Friday Harbor Packing Company (fish cannery), was promoted to supervisor, and eventually opened a florist and nursery. Fuji died in the 1920 influenza pandemic, and their daughter Fumiko, graduated from Friday Harbor High School in 1933. Yuki Saoka was Jack’s second wife. The above photo was taken as they gathered on the eve of the Saoka’s departure for internment at Camp Minidoka in Idaho. Even remote San Juan Island was not exempt from President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, and all persons of Japanese ancestry were banished from the West Coast of the United States. Jack returned in 1945 to settle his affairs, then left and never returned. However, he, Fuji and Yuki are all buried in the Valley Cemetery on Madden Lane.

WHEREAS, Japanese immigrants arrived on San Juan Island in the late nineteenth century to support
cannery labor shortages and other economic development needs in the region; and

WHEREAS, starting in 1917, immigrant workers resided in Friday Harbor including two Japanese
American families, the Saokas and the Uyetsukas, who established lives and homes on San Juan Island
until 1942; and

WHEREAS, the Saoka family made significant contributions to our community cultivating friendships,
growing their own business, and publishing a sincere statement of loyalty to this country and condolences
regarding the December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack; and

WHEREAS, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942,
authorizing the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the west coast to
"relocation centers" further inland resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans; and

WHEREAS, February 19, 2025, marks the 83 rd anniversary of forced relocation of thousands of Japanese
Americans to internment camps, including the Saokas and the Uyetsukas from San Juan Island; and

WHEREAS, this day in American history must never be repeated as it betrayed the sacred value of our
nation to protect the civil rights and liberties we hold dear; and

WHEREAS, I ask all residents of Friday Harbor to remember and honor the Saokas and the Uyetsukas
from San Juan Island and all those impacted by the Japanese Internment;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Raymont C. Jackson, by virtue and authority vested in me as Mayor of Friday
Harbor, do hereby declare that it is my honor and privilege to proclaim today as a Day Of Remembrance

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand
and caused the Seal of the Town of Friday Harbor to be
affixed this 6th day of February 2025.

_______________________________
Raymont C. Jackson, Mayor