Congresswoman Doris Matsui ignored protesters of the Iraq war Monday, as she dedicated a digital archive developed in memory of her late husband, Robert Matsui, inside the Special Collections and University Archives at Sacramento State.

The archive is a collection of video clips, photographs and speeches that focus on Robert Matsui’s leadership in receiving reparations and redress for Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.

The archive also has collections from Asian American newspapers that provide additional perspective on the internment as well as diary entries and quotations from those interned at the time.

Anti-war protesters gathered around the dedication holding signs, chanting and even singing at times to Matsui to vote against an increase in federal funding for the Iraq war.

“(Matsui) needs to come out and say that she will vote against George Bush’s request for more funding for Iraq,” said Maggie Coulter, a member of the Sacramento Coalition to End the War and the Sacramento Area Peace Action.

Protesters said if funding for the war stops, the troops would begin coming home.

The Sacramento Coalition to End the War has been writing letters to Matsui and holding sit-ins at her office since Jan. 8.Jeremy McLaughlin served as a hospital foreman in the Navy from March to April of 2003. He was stationed in Nasiriyah, Iraq and said that he has been protesting the war since he returned from it. He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

McLaughlin said that he wanted to give a voice to those serving in Iraq who cannot speak for themselves.

“Our whole unit of 3,000 were sent over without body armor plates,” McLaughlin said. “We were told to wear the vests without the armor so we would look protected, and the vests are very heavy and it may help to explain why some of our first casualties were heat-related.”

Dave Migliore said the protest is just a piece of the larger grassroots movement that is taking place to try to stop funding the war.

“I heard about the protest a week ago on sacpeace.org, and I expect more than 50 protesters to show up today,” he said.Doris Matsui did not acknowledge the protesters during the dedication. Rather, she took the time to celebrate her husband’s legacy and the memories that will be preserved on the website.

Robert Matsui served 13 consecutive terms as a representative for the fifth Congressional District of California from 1978 until his death in 2005.

Work on the archive began shortly after Robert Matsui’s death, and the California State Library as well as the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program provided most of the funding.

Matsui was born in Sacramento in 1941, and his family was moved between several internment camps before returning to Sacramento in May of 1945.

The archive dedication held Monday was the 65th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s executive order that authorized the removal and internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the west coast states.

Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected]