Legacy

Mary Tamaki Murakami was still swooning over pop stars, and worrying about her homework when her life suddenly took a very real turn. After the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, she saw an immediate crackdown in her own neighborhood in San Francisco. Mary begins seeing the F.B.I. take people within her community, but it was only the beginning of what would become explicit discrimination, justified by war, and empowered by the Supreme Court. Today, she shares her experience to schools and organizations because she fears history is already repeating. As more parallels emerge between her own experience and new policies impacting Muslim-Americans, Mary hopes her own story can serve as a cautionary tale.