Voicing
Refuge
The Irei Project invites the public to read an individual name in the Ireizō aloud and to record the recitation, as a way of honoring those incarcerated during WWII and helping create a living library of spoken names.
"Voicing Refuge is the Irei Project’s invitation to the public to create a communal monument through our voices."
Sunyoung lee
Irei Project Creative Director
The wartime incarceration was based on a race-based denial of due process, a refusal to regard each person as an individual worthy of consideration. Rather than treat people with dignity, the government targeted an entire community as a national security threat. It didn’t matter if you were an elderly grandmother or a newborn baby, a U.S. citizen or an immigrant, the authorities conflated an entire community as un-American.
Calling forth those who have gone before us, we remember every single person who experienced the unjust incarceration and create a sonic refuge connecting the past to the present. And by invoking of the names of ancestors, they in turn, protect us as exemplars of perseverance in the face of injustice.
Using the power of our voice, we protect this history from being excised from our national memory and together, we become the monument to this history.
To record a recitation, look for this button 
on an individual’s plaque.