The story of Japanese citizens ripped from their homes and sent to internment camps is memorialized in a bronze sculpture created by Ruth Asawa.
The sculpture is set modestly to the side on a downtown San Jose, Calif. street.
Standing roughly 5 feet high, what the sculpture lacks in size it makes up for in detail.
On one side, a series of vignettes outline the immigration to the United States by the Japanese and the struggle to conform to American customs while holding on to their own tradition.
The far panel of the depictions of daily Japanese American life show the events that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 when the president declared the citizens a threat.
Forced to give up their businesses and homes, the Japanese American citizens were allowed just two suitcases as they got on the bus and train to go to internment camps.
Asawa's bronze relief illustrates how a bustling business district, crowded with shops and busy people, was turned upside down by President Roosevelt's orders.
It testifies to the pain the citizens endured as women, men and their children were rounded up and sent to uncertainty.
Asawa captures that moment by showing the people lined up, heads hanging down.
Sale and liquidation signs hang in the shop windows in the scene and cars are strapped like mules with belongings in sacks, tied with rope.
This is the last panel of the memorial that shows the citizens in San Jose for this was the last time they would see their homes, shops and farms for years.
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