Seabrook Farms is widely known for its frozen creamed spinach. Less known, though, is that the farm and its hometown, Seabrook, N.J., represents a mythic place to Japanese-Americans around the country.

Many travel to the Buddhist temple that has been in the rural south Jersey community since it welcomed Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.

Seabrook holds a traditional Japanese Buddhist celebration, the Obon Festival, which honors the spirits of ancestors with a day spent eating Japanese food, listening to taiko drums and watching traditional dancing.

“It’s like, ‘Are you going back to Seabrook this Obon?’ It’s not, ‘Are you going back to Seabrook this Thanksgiving,’” said Dr. Sonny Yamasaki, who grew up in the town. “It’s because people want to come back — Obon is the excuse to come back.”

Yamasaki’s parents arrived at Seabrook when they were young. He lives in Florida now, but returns to see his family.

“The sense I get is that Seabrook is known in the Japanese community across the country. The Japanese Americans have heard of Seabrook, and have never been there, right, because it’s so small. But they’ve heard of it,” he said.

The farm was founded by Charles Seabrook and was a major food supplier for the U.S. military during the war. During the war, Seabrook had a labor shortage so the founder sent recruiters to Japanese American internment camps. He advertised in camp newspapers, and internees who could pass a “loyalty test” were able to move to the farm.

“He provided them work. He provided them a place to live. A new life,” explained Col. Michael Asada, Yamasaki’s childhood friend. “And more than 2,500 Japanese Americans came to South Jersey.”

After growing up in Seabrook, Asada left to serve in the military for nearly 40 years. He eventually came back to New Jersey to take care of his aging parents

The former internees worked in various aspects of Seabrook Farms — in the office, on the distribution lines or in the fields. Obon, which was once part of countless Japanese traditions observed in Seabrook, is now one of the temple’s few remaining events.

Some Japanese American activists are drawing parallels between Japanese internment and current deportations enacted by the Trump administration. The travel ban on Muslims from some countries has also dredged up old feelings. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban. But, Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion that the court was making the same mistake it had in Korematsu v. United States. In that case, the court ruled that internment was constitutional.

Asada says he fears the country is making the same mistake. 

“I wake up every day thinking I’m in a — I wouldn’t say dream — just a nightmare at times, because I’m thinking, cannot believe just the rhetoric that I hear, that goes around,” he said.