This virtual public program will explore the politicization of public memory, the dangers of historical erasure, and the consequences of silencing hard truths—whether in our shared outdoor landscapes or in our cultural institutions. We will focus on the unique perspective of Japanese Americans, whose experience of wrongful incarceration during World War II was once denied and ignored by the federal government—until generations of activism forced a reckoning. Now, with new efforts to sanitize or revise history, there is a looming fear that the painful lessons of the past may be buried once again.