ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the structural erasure and systemic forgetting of urban histories with a focus on second-generation Japanese Americans, Nisei, who grew up in pre-WWII Tacoma, WA. Based on interviews with over 40 Nisei, we argue urban “regeneration” often valorizes future uses while disregarding and actively suppressing the past and marginalized communities. Nisei in Tacoma, for instance, contributed to the building of the city and local economy from the late 1880s to 1942 when people of Japanese descent faced wartime incarceration. In the intervening years, homes, businesses, and even prominent buildings such as the Tacoma Japanese Language School have disappeared from the urban built landscape and ruptured urban belonging. Indeed, the “official story” of the urban often relies on the destruction and continued silencing of these pasts, reproducing settler-colonial urbanism as well. This chapter thus argues that structural erasure and practices of ongoing collective amnesia should be understood as a loss for equity planning, a professional practice invested in building more just and alternative futures. Building inclusive cities requires learning how to hear diverse voices, document memories of places, and actively assert belonging for all.
