For this week’s Monument, Memorials and Statues feature, we thought it’d be timely to feature the Japanese American Internment Memorial. Rep. Robert Matsui, the Democrat of California who passed away over the weekend at age 63, was one of the 120,000 Japanese Americans interned in camps across the country during World War II. (See SFist for more on Matsui’s passing.)

The memorial in the nation’s capital is one of the more recent additions to sites to see, but the piece of triangular land is still for the most part off the radar of most locals and tourists. Sitting at the intersections of New Jersey and Louisiana avenues and D Street NW, it is an interesting study in site elevation. The graceful marble walls, fountain and intimate circular plaza set off from the street sit both above and below street level if you look close enough. In this DCist photo here, you can see the centerpiece sculpture, which depicts cranes caught in barbed wire.

Inscribed in the memorial wall are listings of the 10 internment camps used by the U.S. government during World War II to sequester Japanese Americans, who were thought of as a threat to national security during the Pacific campaign.