Japanese internment

(Runtime 4:20) Imagine not seeing your family for nearly 50 years. That was the reality for Andy Goto’s dad after he stowed away on a ship from Japan to…

Who needs a concert hall when there’s a barn nearby? Or a brewery? Or an old electric power plant? The Northwest is home to some classical music venues with decidedly non-classical histories. This is the story of Trillium Woods Farm, home of Concerts in the Barn.

In this installment of the "Past as Prologue" series comes the story of a U.S. soldier, Sgt. George Yamauchi , from Pasco. He asked in 1943: 'What is an American?' Yamauchi penned the question in the local newspaper after his family was persecuted. The question defining who is an American is as relevant today as it was then.

The bill's sponsor says he was "disturbed by the striking parallels" between the treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and current U.S. immigration policy.

To make his latest album, Omoiyari, the Japanese-American artist decided to turn to the past. He visited Japanese internment camps and made music inspired by the stories he found there.

Every September more than a million people go to the Washington State Fair -- oblivious that the Puyallup fairgrounds site was where people of Japanese ancestry were rounded up and incarcerated during WWII.