A group of Billings residents put together an art piece made up of World War II-era paper cranes to be presented on Saturday at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center.
They chose the paper crane because it has become a symbol of hope and peace.
Gary Parkins used the Japanese art of Origami for an art piece called “The Gift of 1000 Paper Cranes.”
“What we're trying to do is just learn from the experience, create awareness,” Parkins said.
The art is part of the Global Peace Foundation's Cross Community Reconciliation project and was inspired when the group visited the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center in Wyoming earlier this year.
Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed for the removal of Americans of Japanese descent and those of Japanese ancestry to be removed from the West Coast.
More than 120,000 mostly were interned shortly after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
About 14,000 stayed at Heart Mountain.
“They were unjustly interned, then let go, but it completely upset their lives,” Parkins said.
Alice Slagowski helped fold the cranes and was a toddler while interned.
“When her family was interned at Heart Mountain, it totally changed the pathway of her life going to Heart Mountain and the culture was just very persevering and they made the most of it,” Parkins said.
Parkins says Slagowski and the family of state Sen.-elect Mike Yakawich of Billings folded most of the cranes.
Yakawich’s daughter Naomi came up with the cranes idea, and Parkins put them into an art piece.
“So the white lillies and the paper cranes are spiraling upward and there's light, light is there to symbolize hope,” Parkins said.
The suitcase is Yakawich’s contribution and is symbolic of each internee entering the camp with one suitcase.
“The only things they were allowed to bring are what they could carry in a suitcase,” said Rebecca McKinley, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation deputy executive director. “And they had a very limited amount of time in which to figure out what to do with their property, whether that was to sell it or find someone who would be a custodian of it.”
McKinley is among the interpretive center staff who will accept the gift.
“Pearl Harbor had a tremendous impact on the entire United States and especially the Japanese-American community because of a lot of that racial prejudice,” McKinley said. “So, it is fitting that we would get a gift of peace on a day that marks quite a terrible event... in the United States history.”
“It was a tough situation, but we don't want it to fall by the wayside,” Parkins said. “We believe that preserving its memory is a good way not to make the same mistakes.”
