Empty Chair Memorial

[3] The title of the memorial refers to a student named John Minoru Tanaka, a Juneau High School valedictorian who was relocated a month before his graduation in May 1942.

Much like the rest of the West Coast, Japanese immigrants began arriving at Alaska in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where they were drawn by fisheries, mining, logging, agriculture, and other labor-intensive industries.

[4] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan and the U.S. entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which gave military commanders the authority to exclude specified persons from certain areas, paving way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

[4] In April 1942, when all ethnic Japanese in Alaska were ordered to leave for internment camps inland, a special ceremony was held on the 15th at the school gymnasium where John received his diploma.

[8] In July 2012, Seattle artist Peter Reiquam submitted a preliminary proposal to the Empty Chair Project Steering Committee which has met with their approval.

The project then took over a span of two years through fundraising and grants from various organizations including the National Park Service's Japanese American Confinement Sites program.

The memorial is a bronze reproduction of a simple folding chair and has a spartan aura, sequestered in the park with a jagged chunk of planked flooring.