Japanese Interned Mother Holding Her Baby Sleeping Daughter and an Emotional Story Behind The Picture in 1942

Born 1911, Japanese-American activist Fumiko Hayashida became one of the first Japanese Americans to be interned in March 1942.

In a photo that became a symbol of a painful chapter in U.S. history, Fumiko Hayashida, who was 31 years old at the time, holds her sleeping 13-month-old daughter, Natalie, while waiting to board a ferry from Bainbridge Island to the mainland with other Japanese American internees.

Hayashida was interned for a year at Manzanar before being moved to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho to be closer to relatives and friends.

(Left) Fumiko Hayashida, 31, carries her daughter Natalie Kayo, 13 months, prepares to board the ferry at Bainbridge Island, Wa. on March 30, 1942. (Right) Fumiko Hayashida, 95, and her daughter Natalie Ong, 66, photographed July 20, 2006.

THEN: Fumiko Hayashida, 31, carries her daughter Natalie Kayo, 13 months, as she prepares to board the ferry at Bainbridge Island, Wa. on March 30, 1942.

Hayashida was among a large group of Japanese Americans who were taken by armed soldiers to the Manzanar Internment Camp in California after Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942. She arrived at Manzanar by train on April 1, 1942.

(Photo Credit: Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry).

A symbol picture of a painful chapter in U.S. history, Fumiko Hayashida, among first Japanese American internees, holds her sleeping daughter in March 1942 as they waited to be sent to an internment camp.

NOW: Fumiko Hayashida, 95, and her daughter Natalie Ong, 66, photographed July 20, 2006 on the family farm from which they had been evacuated on Bainbridge Island, Wa.

(Photograph by Paul Kitagaki, Jr.)

Fumiko Hayashida, 95, and her daughter Natalie Ong, 66, photographed July 20, 2006

In 2006, Hayashida testified in favor of a proposed memorial for Japanese American internees on Bainbridge Island before a U.S. congressional committee. The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial was opened in 2011.

In 2014, Fumiko Hayashida dies at 103.