Tucked back from the road and providing a peaceful sanctuary, the memorial centers on a statue of two cranes bound with barbed wire. During WWII, thousands of West Coast Japanese American citizens were held in internment camps as suspected ‘enemy aliens.’ Even as this discrimination occurred under government mandate, hundreds of their relatives enrolled in the all–Japanese American 442nd Infantry Regiment, which went on to become the war's most decorated American combat unit. The memorial honors both the soldiers and interred civilians.
