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WE ARE STILL HERE
The following description was submitted by the event organizer.
The culminating event of the 10th Annual Vanport Mosaic Festival, Resonance Ensemble and Vanport Mosaic present We Are Still Here—an immersive site-specific performance at the Portland Expo Center, the former site of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. This powerful afternoon brings together the award-winning voices of Resonance Ensemble under its Associate Conductor Shohei Kobayashi; the world premiere of a new commission by Kenji Bunch; and the Portland Assembly Center Project’s unique blend of poetry, movement, and narratives devised by Chisao Hata and Heath Hyun Houghton, amplifying the words and memories of Japanese American survivors of incarceration and reflecting on the impact for their descendants and the community today. Through song, spoken word, and embodied storytelling, We Are Still Here offers a moving reflection on displacement, memory, and the urgent need to reckon with this chapter of Portland’s shared history
The History
More than 120,000 Japanese Americans—most of them U.S. citizens—were forcibly removed from their homes and unjustly incarcerated during World War II. In Portland, the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Center was quickly converted into the Portland Assembly Center, one of 15 temporary detention sites used to confine Japanese Americans before they were sent to more permanent concentration camps like Minidoka in Idaho. From May to September 1942, approximately 3,676 Japanese and Japanese Americans from Oregon and southwest Washington were held in overcrowded, inhumane makeshift conditions at what is now known as the Portland Expo Center. We Are Still Here activates this historic space through music, poetry, movement, and theater.
The Music
Resonance Ensemble, conducted by Associate Conductor Shohei Kobayashi, brings its powerful, socially engaged choral voice to We Are Still Here with a program centered on themes of memory, displacement, and collective reckoning. Kobayashi’s thoughtful leadership anchors a musical journey that includes works by Eric Tuan, Toru Takemitsu, Ayanna Woods, and Caroline Shaw.
“The weaving of community taking place in the creation of We Are Still Here is important work,” says Kobayashi. “I am so inspired by Chisao and Heath and their vision for telling these stories, especially resonant ones, as we witness and cry out against this authoritarian rise in abductions by ICE and the increasing population of prisoners at their inhumane detention centers. It is critical that we grapple with and tell the truth about the connections between this history and our current struggles.”
A highlight of the afternoon is the world premiere of a double-choir work by acclaimed composer Kenji Bunch, setting Chisao Hata’s original poem On This Land. This new commission offers a layered, emotional centerpiece to the program.
Theater, Poetry and Movement
The Portland Assembly Center Project, created by Chisao Hata and writer/director Heath Hyun Houghton, weaves together reader’s theater, original poetry, and movement to activate the voices and memories of Japanese American incarceration. Drawing from works by Lawson Inada, Chisao Hata, and Ken Yoshikawa, with music by Joe Kye and a special appearance by Toshiko Namioka, this ensemble-driven performance honors the lived experiences of survivors and their descendants. Hata is a third-generation Japanese American artist and cultural organizer, whose own parents were incarcerated during World War II in Poston, Arizona, and whose activism and cultural identity permeate her work.
This multidimensional performance invites the audience to bear witness. Through poetry and movement, it becomes a space of resistance, remembrance, and healing—where embodied storytelling speaks not only to history, but to the present moment.