Solidarity March and Rally in San Jose

SAN JOSE — On Saturday, March 25, the Nihonmachi Outreach Committee (NOC) and the South Bay Islamic Association (SBIA) will be co-sponsoring a day of solidarity with the American Muslim community.

A march of solidarity will begin in San Jose Japantown and will end with a rally at San Jose City Hall.

Seventy-five years earlier, on March 24, 1942, the U.S. government imposed a curfew on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The same day, the first round-up of an entire community took place on Bainbridge Island, Wash., across Puget Sound from Seattle. The curfew also led to one of the first acts of resistance, when Japanese American lawyer Min Yasui deliberately broke the curfew to test the legality of EO 9066 on March 28, 1942.

Following the November 2016 election, there has been a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments. Then on Jan. 27, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13769, which sought to ban travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. In response, states filed lawsuits that led to a court injunction against the ban, while grassroots protests of thousands of people happened at airports across the country.

The event will begin in Japantown at the corner of 5th Street and Jackson Street at 11 a.m. Marchers will proceed down 6th street to a rally at 12 p.m. at City Hall on 5th and Santa Clara streets.

For more information or to volunteer, contact Masao at (408) 373-0817 or email info@sjnoc.org. Read more at http://jtown.org/events/2017/3/25/solidarity-march-and-rally#09ZA2MecqDZgkrEA.99