Mission Statement
The Wakasa Spirit Stone collaborative honors James Wakasa and the Japanese Americans unjustly killed during the WWII mass incarceration. Our mission is to preserve their stories, inspire remembrance, and raise awareness of this history through a movable monument carried to sites of conscience. There are eight cases of military murders in the WWII Japanese American concentration camps. Wakasa Memorial Committee plans to take the Wakasa lantern to the sites where prisoners were killed by the military in California, Utah, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
We aim to educate, inspire reflection, and foster dialogue to ensure these injustices are never forgotten.
James Hatsuaki Wakasa
April 11, 1943
James Wakasa, 63, was fatally shot through the chest by a watchtower guard as he walked his dog at the Topaz, Utah, concentration camp.
His friends erected a one-ton, unauthorized memorial stone by the fence where he died. The government ordered it destroyed.
The Original Monument
For nearly 80 years, the Wakasa Monument was thought to have been demolished. In 2015, Nancy Ukai, a Topaz descendant, found a map of Wakasa’s death spot in the National Archives. Archaeologists Mary Farrell and Jeff Burton used the map and discovered the top of the Wakasa Memorial Stone in 2020. Wakasa’s friends had not destroyed the memorial. They had buried their symbol of memory, grief and resistance.
July 27, 2021
The Topaz Museum Board removed the sacred stone using the services of a local backhoe company. Survivors and descendants were not told and archaeologists were not present. An advisory committee of survivors, descendants, archaeologists, a historian and National Park Service officials was not informed until after the removal. This desecration caused immense grief, anger and distress among community members. In its most recent effort to collaborate, the Wakasa Memorial Committee presented to the Board six points to move forward at an autumn 2024 conference in Los Angeles, but has received no reply.
The Wakasa Spirit Stone
March 2024
After nearly three years of negotiations and still denied a voice in decisions on the monument and the memorial site, Topaz survivors and descendants on the Wakasa Memorial Committee decided to create a paper monument of their own.
Yoshinori Asai is the artist who led the creation of the spirit rock.
The Journey Begins
APRIL 2024
The Wakasa ghost lantern was taken to the National Council on Public History annual meeting in Salt Lake City. WMC presented a panel titled, “Who Writes Our History?”
The following day, the paper lantern was taken to the Topaz desert where Wakasa died. A video about Wakasa’s murder, created by Topaz descendant Glenn Mitsui, was projected onto the paper sculpture. At the end of the evening, the moon broke through the clouds. Photo by Yoshinori Asai.
Tule Lake
JULY, 2024
The Wakasa Memorial Committee took the Wakasa Spirit Stone to Tule Lake, California, a WWII maximum security prison for Japanese Americans who were accused by the government of disloyalty.
The lantern was moved to the site where Shoichi James Okamoto, 30, was fatally shot by a guard on May 27,1944. The location of the murder site was identified in 2025 by a camp survivor.
Shining Light on Buried Histories
There are eight confirmed cases of military murders in the WWII Japanese American concentration camps. Wakasa Memorial Committee plans to take the Wakasa lantern to the sites where prisoners were killed by the military in California, Utah, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
WMC also wishes to take the lantern to other sites of racial violence in the U.S., to bring light to buried histories and to pay our respects at sacred spaces of loss, grief and injustice that have laid in darkness for too long,