End Detention, Heal Communities: A Call for Justice

The fight for justice has never been more urgent. With plans to escalate the carceral system and detention centers under the renewed dangers of the Trump administration, our work at Tsuru for Solidarity is at a critical juncture. This year, we’ve accomplished so much—leading bold actions, expanding healing justice initiatives, and building stronger communities in solidarity. But this fight is far from over. Your support is essential to resist these plans and build a united front. Join us today to protect our communities and create a future grounded in solidarity, dignity and justice. Donate now!

Members fighting to shut down the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) truly transformed what long-term, on-the-ground solidarity organizing looks like as a part of Tsuru for Solidarity this year. In honor of Day of Remembrance, eight Tsuru members started a week of action by committing civil disobedience outside the federal building in Seattle to demand action by the US Senators from Washington state to shut down the NWDC. They then led a rally outside the detention center with La Resistencia and a march at the King County International Airport that is being used for ICE’s deportation flights out of NWDC. Stan Shikuma and Mike Ishii wrote an Op-Ed in the Seattle Times and our actions garnered coverage in the International Examiner and the Tacoma Tribune.

Two weeks later, after the death of Charles Leo Daniel while in solitary confinement inside the detention center and numerous suicide attempts and medical emergencies, Tsuru members set up and maintained a 24-hour a day encampment outside the Northwest Detention Center with La Resistencia that lasted over three weeks with elements of it remaining today. Tsuru members participated in solidarity hunger strikes, organized food and supplies, developed a schedule in which over 160 people came to help maintain the encampment, ensured security, held meetings with elected officials, reached out to the press and more. Through this work, we successfully pressured Senator Patty Murray to question Secretary Mayorkas on the use of solitary confinement at the Northwest Detention Center and across ICE facilities and on ending the contract between ICE and the for-profit contractor GEO Group, well known for its torturous and deadly conditions in the detention sites they operate. We also pressured Congressmember Pramila Jayapal as well as Senator Maria Cantwell to send her senior staff to visit NWDC and question the conditions of detention.

To continue putting pressure on, we organized a first-of-its-kind Liberation Obon where Buddhist leaders from across the country led a ceremony to honor Charles Leo Daniel and welcomed other faith leaders to offer prayers. Tsuru members built a giant daruma to set the intention of closing the site, and participants painted uchiwa for the traditional Bon Odori dances, as well as dances and songs from indigenous, Latinx, and other communities.

Through all of this work, Tsuru has become a co-leader with La Resistencia in the campaign to shut down the Northwest Detention Center and to continue organizing particularly in the wake of yet another death in solitary confinement due to medical neglect. Our commitment is stronger than ever, and we are determined to shut down this deadly facility once and for all.

Over the course of 2024,Tsuru for Solidarity’s Healing Justice campaign has expanded and transformed to include work of other healing modalities that go beyond the healing circles. Healing Justice campaign members identified three more areas of work in addition to Healing Circles for Change: Healing Arts Collective, Community Resilience, and education.

In 2024, we held 16 different healing circles both for TFS campaign members and for our partner organizations. Most notably, we held 21 simultaneous healing circles for participants of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, where participants were given the opportunity to reflect and process the experience of the pilgrimage. One participant of the pilgrimage reflected, “The healing circle helped us connect with each other; through generational tragedy, we can become a family.”

In October, TFS held its very first conference on Japanese American intergenerational trauma and healing, Kintsugi 2024. At Kintsugi, the Healing Justice campaign coordinated 11 simultaneous healing circles for participants, once a day for four days. Participants were invited to reflect on what they were experiencing at the conference, and in follow-up sessions, make deeper connections in community. One participant shared, “I came away from the healing circles feeling enveloped in care and community in a way I had never felt before, with a group of people I had just met a few days earlier.”

While we aim to continue offering our healing circles, we have growing groups of other modalities that are emerging. Tsuru’s Healing Arts Collective provides a connection and project space for the healing arts that artists and creatives have historically been providing for various campaigns. The healing circle work that came out of supporting Maui Medic Healers Hui has transformed into “Community Resilience,” which involves thinking about how we can expand and adapt modalities to support the various communities we partner with. Thanks to your support, we have been able to not only provide our members and community partners with various modalities of healing, but to begin to expand our visioning of what healing looks like within the Japanese American Community and across communities in the uncertain times ahead.

Kiku from Tsuru’s Police, Prisons & Detention

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