SFSU, Edison Uno Initiative Mark Day of Remembrance for Japanese American Incarceration

San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies department and the Edison Uno Initiative hosted a Day of Remembrance at SFSU on February 20, 2026 to commemorate the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans following Executive Order 9066. The mid-February event brought the campus observance together around a central memorial installation.

The program at San Francisco State included a garden of remembrance installed as part of the Day of Remembrance activities. The garden of remembrance served as a visual and spatial focus for the Feb. 20 gathering, intended to mark the forced removal and incarceration that followed Executive Order 9066 during World War II.

The Day of Remembrance event was organized by the Asian American Studies department in partnership with the Edison Uno Initiative, the campus program named for civil rights advocate Edison Uno. The partnership framed the commemoration specifically around Executive Order 9066 and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, locating the historical policy decision in the context of SFSU’s curriculum and campus memory work.

Executive Order 9066, cited in the event materials, is central to the program’s purpose: to recall the federal directive that led to the relocation and incarceration of Japanese American residents during the war years. By foregrounding EO9066 in the Feb. 20 program, the Asian American Studies department and the Edison Uno Initiative linked the garden of remembrance to teaching and public history on campus.

The observance at San Francisco State on February 20, 2026 reinforced the department’s and initiative’s focus on public commemoration. The garden of remembrance established during the Day of Remembrance provides a physical marker on campus tied to Executive Order 9066 and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, a point campus organizers used to underscore the ongoing relevance of that history for students and the San Francisco community.