Memory Wall

Memory Wall. Panama Hotel. , Hai! Japantown 2021 , Zocalo Studios has collaborated with Jan Johnson, of the Panama Hotel, to create a memory wall on the exterior plywood surrounding the building. These images speak of the Internment period during World War II, when all Japanese, American citizens and immigrants alike, were summarily deported to desolate camps in central Idaho. Some of the goods they were unable to sell or carry were stored in the hotel and remain there to this day. These images remind us of those unrecovered precious goods, and the estimated 120,000 people who were effected by this devasating upheaval because they happened to be of Japanese descent. We live with this painful portion of our cultural history and wanted help to bring to the outside what is normally hidden on the inside. These walls, thrown up during another period of racial fear, may not be permanent but will impact us nonetheless. , Hinamatsuri , Hinamatsuri, the Doll’s Festival or [Japanese symbols], Momo no Sekku, the Peach Festival, is a special day in Japan. Celebrated each year on March 3, it is one of five Sekku, or important seasonal festivals, held on auspicious dates of the Chinese calendar. Prized as harbingers of Spring, blossoms of the peach tree are thought to ward off malevolent spirits, making them an essential decoration of the hinamatsuri. This festival has evolved as an occasion to celebrate female children and pray for their continued health and happiness., The centerpiece of this festival is a multi-tiered and fabric-covered platform or hinadan, which exhibits a set of ornamental dolls and decorative objects. They are shrines, bu displays that evoke royal pavilions and called hinakazari. The dolls traditionally represented the seated Emperor and Empress, the ladies of the court, and other attendants in ornate dress. This is no longer a strict requirement and you will see a great variety in modern displays. Furnishings and instruments suited to a royal wedding in the Heian dynastic period (784-1185 AD). The festival itself began to be celebrated this way in the much later Edo period of the 17th Centrury, spreading across the nation. They can vary from simple affairs of only a couple steps to elaborate, multi-tiered displays, which recall the golden age of high Japanese culture. , Hinamatsuri traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hinanagashi (literally, “doll-floating”) in which straw hina dolls are set afloat in a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. The Shimogamo Shrine (part of the Damo Shrine complex in Kyoto) celebrates the Nagashibina by floating these dolls between the Takano and Kamo rivers to pray for the safety of children. People have stopped doing this because they were caught in the nets of fishermen. They now send them out to sea, and when the spectators are gone, they bring the boats and dolls back to the temple to burn., The customary drink for the festival is shirozake, a sake made from fermented rice. Hina-arare, small colored crackers flavored with sugar or soy sauce, and hishi-mochi, diamond-shaped colored rice cakes, are served. Chirashizushi (sushi rice flavored with sugar, vinegar, topped with raw fish and other ingredients) is often eaten. A salt-based soup call ushiojiru containing clams still in the shell is also served. Clam shells in food are deemed the symbol of a united and peaceful couple, because a pair of clam shells fits perfectly, and no pair but the original pair can do so., Families generally start to display the dolls in February and take them down immediately after the festival. Traditionally, the dolls were put away the day after Hinamatsuri and superstition holds that leaving the dolls any longer will result in a late marriage for the daughter, but some families may leave them up for the entire month of March. Historically, the dolls were used as toys, but in modern times they are intended for display only. The display of dolls usually discontinues when the girls reach 10 years old. Families normally ensure that girls have a set of the two main dolls before their first Hinamatsuri. The dolls are usually fairly expensive and may be handed down from older generations as heirlooms. , The custom of elaborate displays of masterfully crafted dolls ultimately came to focus on marriage and families. It represented Japanese hopes and values, and as the dolls were said to represent the Imperial Emporer and Empress, it also fostered respect for the throne. The holiday then spread to other countries via the Japanese craftwork and the holiday is a joyous celebration of Japanese culture., Nihonmachi, A Memory Wall , Nihonmachi and the Panama Hotel:, Japanese immigrants began to settle in Seattle in the last part of the 19th century, working in often brutal conditions in lumber, railroads, coal mines, canneries and on farms. Demand for their hard labor grew, as did their numbers, as wives and families followed. The Panama Hotel was built in 1910 by the first Japanese architect in Seattle, Saburo Ozasa. The hotel, designed to house single working men, became an essential focal point of Nihonmachi, the small but thriving zone of Japanese immigrants. These residential zones, which became de facto ghettos when lenders and officialdom restricted access to real estate according to race, had the long term effect of nurturing a large melded community of people carrying forward memories from diverse regional traditions in Japan. There were many services and businesses run by and for the community members. For several generations, Japantown thrived as a cultural focal point, unifying and nurturing its citizens’ strong traditions. The hotel, with its hashidate yu sento (bathhouse) was, for many yearsm, an essential component of that community. In 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Japanese American citizens were declared “enemy aliens” under Executive Order 9066 and summarily deported to a desolate camp in central Idaho. Many who were unable to quickly sell or carry precious, hard-won goods, stored them in the basement of the hotel. Though the hotel owners were eventually able to return, many people whose lives were disrupted by this tragedy never returned to reclain their goods. These images remind us of those uncovered precious goods, and the many thousands of people who were affected by this tremendous upheaval. The whole community was tragically affected and never quite regained its original character. Part of the mission of The Panama Hotel is to preserve and honor the past, keeping alive the memory of those who have lived their stories here. , Takashi Hori owned and operated the Panama Hotel from 1936 to 1986. After the war, Mr. Hori continued to run the Panama Hotel and later married Lily Morinaga. They had two children, Susan and Robert. The Hori Family worked and lived in the hotel, until they sold it in 1985 to Jan Johnson, who continues to run it today. The Panama Hotel has continuously operated as a single-room occupancy hotel since the building's construction in 1911., The Panama Hotel , A National Historic Landmark and Seattle’s only National Treasure., Designed and constructed in 1911 by Saburo Ozasa, Seattle’s first Japanese American architect and a graduate of the University of Oregon