Author, Scholar Dr. Mitchell Maki To Keynote 43rd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, April 28, 2012
March 19, 2012 5 Comments
PILGRIMAGE: Bus transportation still available from Los Angeles, but seats are going fast.
Noted author and scholar Dr. Mitchell T. Maki will be the keynote speaker at the
43rd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage.
Photo courtesy Mitchell Maki
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 imprisonment of over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry in ten American concentration camps located in the most desolate, isolated regions of the United States. Manzanar was the first of these camps to be established.
This year’s 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 anniversary 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
National Defense Authorization Act: Nikkei Community Must Redouble Efforts To Defend Constitutional Rights
January 25, 2012 1 Comment
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Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey, shown here during the
42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage
on April 30, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda
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
Filed under Commentary, Manzanar, Manzanar At Dusk, Manzanar Pilgrimage, News Tagged with Barack Obama, Bruce Embrey, civil rights, discrimination, Executive Order 9066, Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, Japanese American, Japanese American Incarceration, Japanese American Internment, Manzanar At Dusk, Manzanar Committee, Manzanar Pilgrimage, Min Yasui, Minoru Yasui, National Defense Authorization Act, President Barack Obama, President Obama, racism