43rd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, 2012 Manzanar At Dusk Program – April 28, 2012: Bus Transportation Available From Los Angeles

To download a printable flyer,
click on the image above.

LOS ANGELES — The 43rd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Manzanar Committee, is scheduled for 12:00 PM PDT on Saturday, April 28, 2012, at the Manzanar National Historic Site, located on US Highway 395 in California’s Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine and Independence, approximately 230 miles north of Los Angeles.

Each year, over 1,000 people from diverse backgrounds, including students, teachers, community members, clergy and former incarcerees attend the Pilgrimage, which commemorates the unjust incarceration of over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in ten American concentration camps, which were located in the most desolate, isolated regions of the United States. Manzanar was the first of these camps to be established.

This year, the Pilgrimage will commemorate the 70th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the mass roundup and unjust incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans during World War II. The event will also commemorate the 20th anniversity of the establishment of the Manzanar National Historic Site, which was authorized by legislation signed by President George H.W. Bush on March 3, 1992. Read more of this post

2012 Day of Remembrance In Los Angeles: 70 Years After E.O. 9066: Defending Our Civil Liberties – February 18, 2012

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click on the image above.

The following is a press release from Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, the Pacific Southwest District of the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Manzanar Committee.


LOS ANGELES — The 2012 Day of Remembrance (DOR), 70 Years After E.O. 9066: Defending Our Civil Liberties, will include a special salute to the late Gordon Hirabayashi, who resisted the U.S. Government’s unfair curfew and forced exclusion of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II, as part of the community program set for Saturday, February 18, at 2:00 PM. at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). The program, which is organized by Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress (NCRR), the Pacific Southwest District of the Japanese American Citizens League (PSW-JACL), the Manzanar Committee and JANM, is free, but the Museum is asking attendees to “pay what you can” to help defray logistics costs. Read more of this post

Professor Emeritus Art Hansen To Present Guest Lectures At Manzanar NHS, February 18-19, 2012

To download a printable flyer,
click on the image above.
(requires Adobe Reader to view/print).

The following is a press release from the National Park Service.


MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, NEAR INDEPENDENCE, CA — Dr. Art Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History and Asian American Studies at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), will speak at Manzanar National Historic Site over Presidents Day weekend in honor of the Day of Remembrance.

The annual Day of Remembrance observance commemorates the impact of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which, on February 19, 1942 authorized the forced removal of more than 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast. Read more of this post

Public Input Sought On Development Of Block 14 At Manzanar National Historic Site

To download a printable copy of Manzanar National Historic Site’s
Block 14 Draft Master Plan, click on the image above
(requires Adobe Reader to view/print).

The following is a press release from the National Park Service.


MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, NEAR INDEPENDENCE, CA — Seventy years after the Federal government constructed Manzanar War Relocation Center, it is working to help visitors understand what life was like for 11,070 Japanese Americans confined at the site between 1942 and 1945. A key step in that process is refining plans for a “demonstration block” at Block 14 to illustrate daily life in camp. Read more of this post

Dr. Donald Hata, Artist Hatsuko Mary Higuchi Featured At Gardena JCI Day of Remembrance Program

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click on the image above.

GARDENA, CA — The Bridge – JCI Heritage Center will host a Day of Remembrance commemorative program on February 26, 2012, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM, at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (JCI) in Gardena, California, in honor of this year being the 70th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, that authorized the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans into American concentration camps during World War II.

Featured in the program are Dr. Donald Hata, Emeritus Professor of History at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who was incarcerated at the Gila River concentration camp in Arizona. Read more of this post

Community Members Invited to Join Manzanar Volunteer Day – March 3, 2012

To download a printable flyer,
click on the image above.

The following is a press release from the National Park Service.


To honor its 20th Anniversary as a National Historic Site, Manzanar is hosting its Fourth Annual Volunteer Day on Saturday, March 3, 2012, from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM.

Owens Valley residents, their families, friends, and others are invited to join the Manzanar staff in an outdoor work project followed by a catered lunch and program presented by Archeologist Jeff Burton.

The Volunteer Day work project involves clearing a section of the historic Chicken Ranch to preserve this rarely seen section of the site. Read more of this post

Cast in Bronze: Terminology Symposium in San Francisco, October 22, 2011

By Soji Kashiwagi

The main reason for holding a day-long symposium on terminology and the use of U.S. government euphemisms during World War II was not, according to event organizers, to take on the role of the “word police” and tell members of the Japanese American community what they should or should not say regarding what happened some 69 years ago.

In fact, Mako Nakagawa, the Seattle-based author of the Power of Words Resolution which was passed by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) National Council in 2010, said that those who lived through the experience “…have earned the right to call it whatever they want.”

Instead, the event’s focus turned toward educating those in public institutions and museums who cast words in bronze that, as Lane Hirabayashi describes, “…are not strictly or historically accurate like ‘internment,’ or ‘relocation,’ on plaques, memorials, exhibits, and installations in Interpretive Learning Centers.” Read more of this post

National Defense Authorization Act: Nikkei Community Must Redouble Efforts To Defend Constitutional Rights

Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey, shown here during the
42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage
on April 30, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

by Bruce Embrey

LOS ANGELES — President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on December 31, 2011, allowing indefinite detention without charge or trial to be codified into law. As a result, Americans citizens and others could be subjected to imprisonment without ever being charged or convicted of a crime. This provision of the NDAA denigrates the very foundations of this country, and undermines the Bill of Rights. Without question, it threatens the very foundation of our democracy.

Seventy years ago, 110,000 members of the Japanese American (Nikkei) community, our families and friends, were subjected to imprisonment without ever being charged by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he signed Executive Order 9066. The Nikkei community was denied habeas corpus, rounded up by the United States military and incarcerated behind barbed wire in desolate places.

Indeed, indefinite detention is an indelible part of our experience. In this sense, the Nikkei community is part of the democratic conscience of the United States. Read more of this post

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