RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY UCC COMMEMORATES "TRAIN OF TEARS"

Hood River’s Riverside Community Church UCC Commemorates “Train of Tears”

On the 80th anniversary of the deportation by the federal government from Hood River of more than 400 residents of Japanese descent, including many U. S. citizens, Riverside Community Church is holding a commemorative march from the church to the Hood River train station. The ceremony will start at noon on Friday, May 13.

Over the past year as part of its “Reckoning With Racism”, church members have studied this history, and the congregation recently has formally adopted a declaration acknowledging and apologizing for its tacit acceptance of the government’s action. The declaration states, in part:

“We now declare as a congregation that our silence 80 years ago was wrong and that by remaining silent, we too caused harm. We are sorry for our silence when voices mattered most. We therefore are signing on to this declaration as a form of public apology for that silence and a vow to never again stay silent in the face of oppression.”

Members of other UCC churches in the Central Pacific Conference are invited to stand with Riverside in its public apology about the incarceration during World War II of Japanese descendants living on the West Coast.

An Oregon history of this era is available in the Oregon Encyclopedia at https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/japanese_internment.