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

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.

The chicken ranch was created during World War II for the Manzanar War Relocation Center which held over 10,000 Japanese Americans. The ranch was established to supplement the food needs of the internees and the War Relocation Authority employees and their families. The Japanese American crews constructed the chicken facilities during the summer and fall of 1943. They maintained it during the next two years, supplying over 113,000 eggs and over 8,000 harvested chickens.

Volunteers will be provided with shovels, pruners, rakes, brooms, and wheelbarrows to remove vegetation from the area. Work will be supervised by park staff.

Manzanar welcomes community involvement in the preservation of this special site. Staff and community members will work together to improve the site, get to know each other, and have some good, dirty, outdoor fun.

Please wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes, a hat, and sunscreen. Manzanar will provide water, food, work gloves, a commemorative water bottle and bandana will be given to every participant.

The day’s schedule is as follows:

8:30 AM – 9:00 AM: Arrive, park and sign-in at the Interpretive Center parking lot
9:00 AM: Welcome, outline of work, safety message
9:15 AM – 12:00 PM: Work project
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Picnic lunch provided by Friends of Manzanar, discussion by park archeologist about Manzanar’s Chicken Ranch, past and present

Volunteers should RSVP as participation is limited. Please call Park Ranger Carrie Andresen for more information and to RSVP at (760) 878-2194, extension 3314.

Manzanar National Historic Site is located nine miles north of Lone Pine and six miles south of Independence on the west side of U.S. Highway 395.

For more information on Manzanar National Historic Site, please visit the web site at http://www.nps.gov/manz or call (760) 878-2194.

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Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Editor’s Note: The following piece by Jenni Kuida, a tribute to former Manzanar Committee member Grace Harada, was originally published in January 2002, in the Rafu Shimpo, and on her family’s web site. She posted a link to her story on Facebook on January 18, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Harada’s passing. We thought it would be a fitting tribute to publish it here as well.

Former Manzanar Committee member Grace Harada (center), shown here with Jenni Kuida (left) and
Sue Kunitomi Embrey (right), who passed away in 2006.
Photo: Jenni Kuida

Sadly, she passed away on January 18 at age 76. Only one week earlier, she suffered from a massive stroke and slipped into a coma. Just like that. At the memorial service for Grace at Senshin Buddhist Temple, Reverend Mas Kodani spoke fondly of Grace, using the words “gracious” and “graceful” to describe Grace. He talked about how Grace loved to dance. She lived her life doing what she loved to do. She found true joy in dancing, and in teaching dance to others.

She did not perform for money or fame, but she danced for the community, for her daughters, her grandchildren, and her two great grandchildren. She danced for the pure love of it. Rev. Mas’ advice was to find what you love and do it. Accept that you’ll make mistakes along the way, but to find your joy in life. Like Grace did.

People like Grace are true gems in the community. She wasn’t a high profile person. But she was a leader by example. Through Grace’s love of Bon Odori, she shared her knowledge of Japanese folk dance with literally thousands of people on the last Saturday of every April at Manzanar, and each summer throughout the obon season. She even helped create new Japanese American dances at Senshin. I can’t imagine how many people have danced with, beside and behind Grace, following her graceful feet and arm movements.

Grace was one of my favorite people on the Manzanar Committee. I started volunteering with the Manzanar Committee about six years ago, but Grace has been with the Committee since its beginning. I think she only missed the pilgrimage once, when she was having problems with her knees. She was that dedicated.

What I liked most about Grace was her cheerful spirit and her deep compassion concern for others. After Sue Embrey, Manzanar Committee Chairperson, stopped driving recently, Grace would always make sure that Sue had a ride. I also remember her speaking more than once about how easy her life had been, compared to the struggles that her parents and other Issei faced living in America.

Every year at the Manzanar Pilgrimage, we would end the day with the traditional tanko bushi, honoring the 10,000 former internees who lived at Manzanar. Grace would always be out there, whether it was in the extreme desert heat, or the bitter cold wind, wearing her turquoise blue yukata jacket, head tilted, fingers together, demonstrating the movements, and showing us what to do.

I have seen pilgrimage first timers join in the tanko bushi without hesitation. I think it was Grace’s generous nature and her smiling face, that put people at ease. She had a way of making it look so easy, accessible, and fun.

A lesson for us Sansei, Yonsei, and Gosei is to learn all we can from the wisdom keepers like Grace, who hold knowledge about these Japanese and Japanese American cultural traditions. Because without them, these traditions and cultural practices will die with them. Grace was a role model to young people, but she was not alone.

There are hundreds of every day people like her, volunteering their time, sharing their knowledge at every turn, from their own inner circles. Whether they are dancing at obon, helping to maintain or build their community centers, telling children about their wartime camp experiences, or continuing to fight for redress, we have many gems in the Japanese American community. Gems who are unrecognized for their efforts, but do so because it is what they love to do.

Finally, Grace’s sudden passing is a reminder to us all that we should not take friends and family for granted. We should treat people with kindness and honesty, as Grace did. I don’t know who will lead the tanko bushi at the pilgrimage this year, and that makes me a little sad.

But I know that as we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 in 2002, that she would want someone to take her place, to teach a new generation of dancers and pilgrims. I also know that Grace will be dancing at Manzanar in spirit, gracious and graceful.

Sansei activist Jenni Kuida, a former secretary and webmaster for the Manzanar Committee, writes from Culver City, California.

The views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Manzanar Committee member Joyce Okazaki was a child when she was incarcerated at Manzanar, shown here in this famous photo by renowned photographer Ansel Adams.

The Manzanar Committee encourages those with questions to feel free to contact us. We don’t always have the answers, but if we don’t, we can usually put people in touch with those who do.

Manzanar Committee member Joyce Okazaki, who was incarcerated at Manzanar as a child, answered some questions sent to us by Terry Healy, who teaches a sixth grade class at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Manhattan, Kansas.

by Joyce Okazaki

I was sent with my family to Manzanar, California, and arrived there on April 2, 1942. I was a second grader, and when I left in August, 1944, I finished fifth grade. I had a difficult adjustment to regular school, but did not suffer any discrimination from people in Chicago, Illinois.

The following are my answers to often asked questions by students in schools across the country, when assigned by their teachers.

1. What was the reaction of those who were sent to the camps?

In that day and time, the Japanese Americans were a silent and obedient minority, who went along with whatever was ordered for them by the authorities. There were very few, only three out of 120,000 people, who refused to obey the curfew, or to register and be forcibly removed from their homes to go to an unknown place.

Although I was a child then, I went with my parents, who obeyed orders. But imagine if you are an adult, forced to leave your comfortable home, leave your job, and sell or store your belongings and furniture, because you don’t know where you are going and how long you will be gone. No one tells you anything other than you have to leave, and you can only take what you can carry. If your parents have young children, they have to carry everything for the children as well as themselves.

2. What is the best way to describe the camps? We have heard internment camps, prison camps, concentration camps, and relocation camps?

The best description is concentration camp, because I was incarcerated in one, surrounded by barbed wire fencing and eight guard towers with armed sentries. I was a citizen and denied my civil rights. There was no hearing, and no charges for any crimes.

An internment camp for internees are for enemy aliens during a time of war. We were citizens.

A prison camp is for criminals who are convicted of crimes usually after being tried in court.

A relocation camp is for people who have to be moved away from a hazard, such as a toxic or polluted area. An evacuation of an area happens during a time of hurricanes, fires or floods to move people from their homes, but are eventually moved back within a short period of time.

A concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned, not because of any crimes they committed, but because of who they are. During World War II, America’s concentration camps were distinguishable from Nazi Germany’s camps, which were torture camps and in some cases, death camps or extermination camps. Concentration camps have existed in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia, and Bosnia. All of these camps had one thing in common: the people in power removed a minority group from the general population and the rest of society let it happen.

3. What was the impact on the families that were sent to the camps short term? Long term?

Manzanar Committee member Joyce Okazaki (seated to the left of the gentleman in the blue shirt) participates in a small group discussion
at the 2007 Manzanar At Dusk program.
Photo: Gann Matsuda.

Families also had to learn to go outside to another barrack to shower, use the toilet, and do laundry.

The long-term impact was that Japanese American adults did not talk about this period in their lives for many years to their families, friends and the community, and some of the people may never have spoken about this event. This is probably because of the perceived shame of being sent to a prison for no reason, and many could never understand the reason why this had to happen. They were silent to their graves.

4. Did many people leave the camps to go to other parts of the United States or remain there?

The West Coast of the United States was designated as a restricted military zone, and was closed to all who were incarcerated in concentration camps. The Japanese Americans were not allowed to move back to the West Coast. Once the US Supreme Court decided, in December of 1942, that the Japanese Americans, who were determined to be loyal, could leave, some applied for permission to leave the camp, provided that they had a sponsor at the destination.

Each person leaving camp was given a one-way ticket to wherever they chose to go and $25. My father requested permission to leave and was given a train ticket to New York. He found a job that was in Chicago, Illinois, and moved there. He sent for us and we left camp in August 1944. We lived in Chicago for eight years before Dad got a transfer to Los Angeles, and we moved.

Many of the people who settled in Chicago have remained there all of their lives. Others moved to New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Denver, Colorado, Salt Lake City, Utah, Seabrook, New Jersey, and various other cities that were accepting of the Japanese Americans.

After December, 1944, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) decided to lift the restrictions of moving back to the West Coast. My grandparents then moved back to Los Angeles in March 1945. After the war ended with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, those remaining in the camps returned to the West Coast, and suffered from a housing shortage. The last camp to close was Tule Lake, California, which closed on March 20, 1946.

5. Did the court case of Fred Korematsu make any difference?

The original decision of Korematsu vs. US was tried all the way to the US Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the US Government was justified in placing all Japanese Americans into concentration camps because of military necessity. Documents stated that there were instances of spying and sabotage recorded. All of this was later found to be false after documents found in the National Archives in the early 1980’s actually showed that documents were falsified to justify their position. One such document, of which there were ten copies, was the only one remaining in the files, because the other nine copies were destroyed, was discovered by a researcher, Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga. With this document, constitutional lawyers then set about to open the case by a writ of error of Coram Nobis, an old procedure, to attempt to appeal Korematsu’s case, The appeal was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court decision was eventually vacated, freeing Korematsu of being a felon in 1984.

The views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

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PILGRIMAGES: After talking about the origins, history, and the status of the present-day Manzanar and Tule Lake Pilgrimages, the focus of an October 8, 2011 event at the Japanese American National Museum turned to the future of both pilgrimages, along with that of Japanese American community organizations.

Tule Lake Committee members Barbara Takei (left) and Stan Shikuma (right)
were panelists during an event discussing the origins, history and
future of the Manzanar and Tule Lake Pilgrimages at the
Japanese American National Museum on October 8, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

The panelists included California Assemblymember Warren Furutani, Bruce Embrey, Co-Chair of the Manzanar Committee, and Stan Shikuma and Barbara Takei, both with the Tule Lake Committee.

After concentrating mostly on the origins and history of each pilgrimage (see Panel Looks At Past, Present And Future Of Manzanar And Tule Lake Pilgrimages During JANM Event), the focus shifted towards the future.

With the Manzanar Pilgrimage entering its 43rd year, and with the Tule Lake Pilgrimage now 37 years old, panelists grappled with question of what role the two pilgrimages will play in the Japanese American community, not to mention society in general, and what lies ahead for both long-standing traditions.

One challenge facing the Tule Lake Pilgrimage is finding a way to allow more people to participate.

“We travel together on the buses, and the buses, in a sense, form communities, spending four days together, processing, sharing stories, getting to know people,” said Takei, a Sansei from Sacramento, California, whose mother was incarcerated at Tule Lake before it became a segregation center, as well as at the Amache camp. “I think this is the thing about the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. When you’re traveling together, eating your meals together, you’re living together in the dorms, and going and visiting the site together, there’s a lot of sharing that goes on, and I think that is one of the very powerful parts of the experience.”

“But we can’t accommodate the numbers that [attend] the Manzanar Pilgrimage, which is usually over 1,000 people,” added Takei. “That’s the thing that we’re looking at in the future, trying to find ways to accommodate more people, because the healing process continues.”

Takei, who co-authored, Tule Lake Revisited: A Brief History and Guide to the Tule Lake Internment Camp Site, with Judy Tachibana in 2001, also stressed that the pilgrimages should always shine a bright spotlight on addressing injustices, and not only those facing Japanese Americans.

“The story of wartime incarceration is such a powerful story of the violation of civil rights that all Americans should care about it,” she noted. “Those of us who have family members who experienced it have the opportunity, that personal connection, to share that story, and to find ways to connect the Japanese American story to other stories, incidents and events in social justice.”

“One of the worst parts of the experience for our family members was the sense of isolation, that they were removed, and no one really cared, no one reached out,” she added. “The only group that reached out were the Quakers. In hindsight, we can look back and see the terrible pain that isolation caused. Perhaps we’ll be in a better position to respond when others civil, or other kinds of injustice.”

Embrey emphasized that the Japanese American community has a special responsibility to speak out against injustice.

Students are the ones who really started the pilgrimages, both Tule Lake and Manzanar. When we did that, it’s not like we had all the answers. We were searching for answers. Sometimes, we were just searching for the right questions. But we were willing to take action, and that’s really important, I can’t stress enough how important is it to not be satisfied with just studying the question and saying, ‘hey, that’s not right,’ but going out and doing something [about it]. — Stan Shikuma

“Our community has a unique place in American History, and you can say that Native Americans do too, because, in many ways, reservations were concentration camps,” Embrey stressed. “But our community, as a whole, not just those who were in camp, has a special responsibility to ensure that this country, the broader public, understands what happened on its soil, understands how far the government went to violate our Constitution, and understands the profound economic, psychological—the social dislocation that this act—how it impacted an entire community.”

“We occupy a special place in history, and in this country,” Embrey added. “It is incumbent upon us—actually, we have a responsibility to continue to educate, and continue to bring up the issues of Constitutional rights. This is an ongoing issue that can erupt at any time.”

Historically speaking, what Embrey and Takei described above are what both pilgrimages have been all about since their beginnings in 1969 (Manzanar) and 1975 (Tule Lake).

“Once somebody goes to one of these pilgrimages, it’s a profound transformation,” Embrey noted. “I had an African American reporter come up to me [at one of the recent Manzanar Pilgrimages] and she burst into tears. These are not little vacations, or tours of a historic site. You’re looking at ruins, but they have a profound psychological impact.”

“You’ve got to get people to go, and you have to educate people about what happened,” Embrey added. “This isn’t something that’s easily absorbed. It was very difficult to even get people to talk about it. For decades, people didn’t talk about it, and it took decades for people to come to grips with the camp experience, and to [begin to] heal.”

“The healing process still has to go on. It has had an impact on our community to this day. The Yonsei and Gosei need to understand that it has impacted their families, and their own lives. There is an indirect, empathetic quality that’s very powerful. But there’s also the direct question of how does this relate to some of the struggles going on today, some of the struggles that I face. You have to get people to go to these pilgrimages. It’s incumbent on you, it’s incumbent upon us, to try to draw these lessons for people, and urge them to get involved.”

Beyond The Pilgrimages: Getting Involved

“The pilgrimages are very powerful, spiritual experiences, and are really touchstones for who we are, said Takei. “It’s a very emotionally deep experience. But from there, then what? After the pilgrimage, how do you then integrate it into your life?”

Takei’s question goes to the core of what the two pilgrimages are all about…educating and empowering people so that they can act.

One such issue is the current movement to use appropriate, non-euphemistic language when referring to the camps and the camp experience.

“There’s a debate on how we’re going to talk about the camps,” said Shikuma, who became involved with the Tule Lake Committee in 1978, as a member of the Asian Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley. “Are they going to be presented as ‘relocation centers,’ as the government’s propaganda portrayed it in 1942, or are they going to be called ‘concentration camps’ that the United States set up for its own citizens? You can get involved in that debate. It’s going on right now.”

“Much of the language that we’ve been using to talk about the camps is the language of the oppressor,” Takei explained. “It’s the language of the WRA [War Relocation Authority]. The purpose of that language was to hide and minimize what was going on.”

Shikuma then issued a challenge to the students.

“As students, you’re in institutions of higher education, you’re in a learning situation, so, start by educating yourselves,” he stressed. “You can’t help other people if you don’t know what’s going on. Once you start down that path, help educate others. You can put on educational program, go on the pilgrimages.”

“Students are the ones who really started the pilgrimages, both Tule Lake and Manzanar,” he added. “When we did that, it’s not like we had all the answers. We were searching for answers. Sometimes, we were just searching for the right questions. But we were willing to take action, and that’s really important, I can’t stress enough how important is it to not be satisfied with just studying the question and saying, ‘hey, that’s not right,’ but going out and doing something [about it].”

“I would encourage all of you to try to have an impact on the world.”

UCLA Nikkei Student Union member Hiromi Aoyama (at left, behind podium) was one of the students moderating the
discussion with panelists (from left) Barbara Takei, Stan Shikuma, and Bruce Embrey.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

Although the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU) moderated the discussions, they seemed to get much more out of the event than they put into it.

“My grandparents, one was in Amache, and I think she moved around [to at least one other camp],” said Sacramento native Alyssa Matsuo, a twenty-year-old Biology major at UCLA, and a member of NSU. “My grandfather was in the [United States] Army, so they had to write letters back and forth.”

“One of my uncles was in Tule Lake, so I had family there, but I haven’t heard much about Tule Lake or Manzanar, because I didn’t have family at Manzanar,” added Matsuo. “I didn’t know there was a jail at Tule Lake. I didn’t know about the Tule Lake Pilgrimage at all. I think that would be an interesting one to go to, since it’s different from all the other ones.”

“I really want to have the first-hand experience. I’ve heard stories through my grandmother’s experiences, so I guess I want to learn more. I would like to go [to the Manzanar Pilgrimage] this year, if I can, just so I can get that first-hand experience.”

NSU President Matt Ichinose also had a family member behind the barbed wire at Tule Lake.

“I enjoyed listening to the presentations about Tule Lake, because my grandfather was incarcerated there, so I have a family attachment to that,” he said. “I enjoyed hearing about what they do at their pilgrimage.”

“Because we’re always involved with the Manzanar Pilgrimage every year, it’s important to know how much we can learn from the panelists, and how NSU can go forward in terms of its involvement with the Manzanar Pilgrimage,” he added. “For our organization, it was a good chance to hear about a different pilgrimage, because all we hear about is the Manzanar Pilgrimage, because that’s the one we go to. Hopefully, this will spur interest in the other pilgrimages as well.”

Turning The Tables

Although the program began as a traditional event where the audience listened to the remarks made by the panelists, it took an abrupt turn.

Indeed, the focus shifted from the panelists to the students, who suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of questions from the panelists about how they learned about the camp experience, their experiences at the Manzanar Pilgrimage, how they deal with questions of identity and race, and more.

Although this kind of dialogue between the panelists and students was not part of the original plan, the event turned out to be exactly what JANM organizers had hoped for.

“I really wanted to tell the Japanese American story, the history of the story, and not just talk about the past, but how we could learn from past mistakes, and that we could talk about the community in the future,” said Koji Steven Sakai, Manager of Public Programs at JANM. “What I didn’t want it to be was everyone talking about the history, just reminiscing, and going over the same details, over and over.”

“What I really wanted was the students to be able to learn something, and get something out of it,” added Sakai, who served as the primary organizer of the event. “As they think about our community going forward, the Yonsei, the Gosei, and all the generations after that, I want them to think about what they can learn from the Sansei, how they can use those lessons, and continue the Japanese American community.”

The students were taken by surprise.

“I was actually surprised about that,” said Ichinose. “I thought it was going to be more about them talking about their experiences, and the history behind the pilgrimages. But it ended up being more interactive between the students and the panelists.”

“It was a very good way to interact with the panelists, to become more a part of the event, to share our perspectives and find out what they think about our views about the pilgrimages,” added Ichinose.

The spotlight that shined so brightly on the students served to illuminate much more than their views on the camp experience and the pilgrimages.

I think a lot of community organizations are struggling with the question of how to carry on to the next generation. I feel like the only way we can move forward as a community and get the young people involved is to actually involve them, to ask them questions, and really hear what they have to say. — Koji Steven Sakai

“We could’ve had a fine program with the panelists we had, with what they were talking about in terms of what was going on, historically, and why the pilgrimages are important,” said emcee Chris Komai, JANM’s Public Information Officer. “But that other aspect of why this issue is still relevant today, especially with young people—that’s the ultimate question for all of our Japanese American organizations.”

“If the young people in our community aren’t interested in these kinds of things, what’s going to happen to all of our organizations,” added Komai. “The fact that we found so many of them, and so many of them who expressed, in such a very fine way, their feelings, is something that makes me very hopeful for the future.”

Involving the younger generations in a manner in which they feel that they are respected and valued has been a mostly overwhelming challenge for Japanese American community organizations for many years—many have failed to bridge the generation gap, let alone attempt to do so.

“Even though there’s a lot of community organizations, and a lot of people want to involve Yonsei and Gosei, I think they want to involve them [in terms of the] Sansei telling the Yonsei and Gosei about themselves, or about what happened in the past, but [the communication] doesn’t go back the other way,” said Sakai.

“I think a lot of organizations are talking about involving the younger generations, and having their voices in there,” added Sakai. “From my perspective, I’m relatively young, 34 years old. I tend to be the youngest person, and I know there are a lot more younger people who have totally different experiences than I’ve had. I just feel, as a community, like we’re not listening, and we don’t want to listen. We just want to tell.”

“I felt like it might be an interesting change to see what the Yonsei and Gosei had to say, or what the shin-Issei had to say. In fact, to hear what the shin-Issei had to say was really interesting, and I thought, worked out the best in the whole program.”

Komai noted the importance of engaging young people in dialogue and respecting them and their views, rather than just talking and expecting them to be glued to every word.

“I think that’s something that, educationally, is really good, because, the thing is, if you really want to get people involved, you really need to ask them ‘why,’” he noted. “You need to find out what interests them. If you just try to lecture them, if you just try to force feed them everything, just from my own experience as a student, that doesn’t work.”

“But if you’re suddenly taking an interest in me [as a student], and asking me what is my story, what is my background, why would I be interested in the story in the first place, I think that opens it up, and we have two-way communication, and I think this program worked very well along those lines,” he added.

“I think a lot of community organizations are struggling with the question of how to carry on to the next generation,” Sakai emphasized. “I feel like the only way we can move forward as a community and get the young people involved is to actually involve them, to ask them questions, and really hear what they have to say.”

One interested party would love to involve students, but not quite in the way Sakai has in mind. Nevertheless, the experience would be invaluable.

Les Inafuku, Superintendent of the Manzanar National Historic Site, was in Los Angeles for the event, and, having seen these students in action over the years at the Manzanar At Dusk program, he sees an untapped resource, not to mention a relationship that would be mutually beneficial.

Indeed, Inafuku said that the site has research, on-site development work (historic/archeological sites within their boundaries), and many more tasks that he cannot place on the shoulders of his already overworked staff.

“It’s hard to say with the federal budget, not knowing where we are—maybe our partners can help us with funding for student interns, right on site, or, it could be worked out that it could be time spent here in Los Angeles, and time at Manzanar to work on projects,” said Inafuku. “We’ve got lots of research needs. Then there’s social networking. We don’t have time for it, and we could certainly use help with that.”

But Inafuku is also looking beyond internships. Indeed, he is hoping students, especially Japanese Americans, will consider working full-time for the National Park Service, especially at Manzanar, after graduating.

“Asian Americans are very underrepresented within the National Park Service, and we really need to have more,” he noted. “I think it’s a shame that I’m the first Nikkei employee at Manzanar National Historic Site.”

For those counting, Manzanar National Historic Site was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1992.

“We have Caucasians who are interpreting Nikkei history to the American public, and to people throughout the world. They’re doing a great job, but they would do a better job if there were Nikkei on staff from whom they could learn even more.”

Unattributed views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Related Story:

• Panel Looks At Past, Present And Future Of Manzanar And Tule Lake Pilgrimages During JANM Event

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

PILGRIMAGES: The origins, the history, and the future of the Manzanar and Tule Lake Pilgrimages was the focus of an October 8, 2011 event at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. The following is the first of two stories covering the event.

California Assemblymember Warren Furutani broke down
the origins and history of the Manzanar Pilgrimage during
an event at the Japanese American National Museum
on October 8, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

During Community Builders: Japanese American Activism, 1960-1980 (Part 1), JANM brought together a diverse group of voices representing the past, the present and the future of both pilgrimages to discuss the origins, the history and what is on the horizon for both of the annual events.

Starting off the event was California Assemblymember Warren Furutani, who represents the 55th Assembly District, which includes the cities of Carson, Harbor City and Harbor Gateway, Lakewood, parts of Long Beach and Wilmington.

Furutani was one of the founders of the Manzanar Pilgrimage back in 1969.

“I remember when Victor Shibata and I were going to Oceanside to be in an anti-war march,” he reminisced. “The idea was to take the issue of the Vietnam War directly to the Marine base [Camp Pendleton]. I don’t know how smart that was, but we went down there to work with a group called Green Machine. The leader was a young woman named Pat Sumi, who asked us to come down and help.”

“We were sitting there, talking about marches,” he added. “I think we had the Poor People’s March in Washington, D.C., the farm workers had just marched to the Capitol to talk about their issues. Victor and I said that we had to march somewhere, and that’s when the idea came up of marching to Manzanar.”

“[Manzanar] was the closest, so logic said we can march to that, and, in those days, we didn’t have Google Maps, so we took out the map. [A little over 200] miles—that doesn’t sound too far, so we went.”

With that, Furutani and Shibata, along with a group of about 150 others, made the trek to Manzanar in what would become the first Manzanar Pilgrimage on a cold, winter day in December 1969. But their limited knowledge of the camp experience, and Manzanar in particular, led them astray.

“Our first turn off of Highway 395 [the road that runs past Manzanar in the Owens Valley] after we went past the [former Manzanar High School auditorium, now the Interpretive Center at the Manzanar National Historic Site]—that was the landmark that we were told about,” said Furutani. “There was a sign called Manzanar [Reward] Road, and I don’t know if the sign is there [anymore] because we stole the one that was there at the time [it has long since been replaced]. But it went east. So, instead of going west, we went east, in the opposite direction.”

“We came upon the old [Manzanar] Airport,” added Furutani. “It had old asphalt that criss-crossed [the old runways]. With our limited knowledge, we started imagining those were the roads in the camp, and the barracks must’ve been here. We were trying to put it together with a really limited amount of knowledge.”

Then things got a bit more exciting.

“Off in the distance, a pick-up truck started coming towards us,” Furutani recalled. “There was a cloud of dust, and it kept on coming closer, and as it got closer, we started to pay more attention. We could see the guys in it had cowboy hats on. As it got closer still, we could see there was a gun rack in the back window.”

“When they pulled up on us, they rolled down their windows and asked, ‘what are you boys doing here,’ Furutani added. “We said, ‘we’re not boys, we’re men, and we’re looking for Manzanar, which was a camp that people like you put us in.’”

“We were pretty [gutsy] in those days.”

But that chip on their shoulders got knocked off very, very quickly.

“They started laughing, which really [angered] us,” said Furutani. “‘What the hell are you laughing at,’ we asked.”

“They said, ‘well, if you’re looking for Manzanar, it’s on the other side of 395.’”

Tule Lake Committee member Stan Shikuma.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“So, with our tails between our legs, we got in our cars and drove to the other side of 395, and that’s when we found the [cemetery] monument,” he said. “It was stark, it was weather-beaten, but it was still white, and it was interesting, because the backdrop was, literally, [Mount Williamson], and the Sierra Nevada mountains. There was an elegance to it, a starkness. It was very dramatic during a cloudy day, which provided all the environmental drama that helped fill in all the spaces relative to the limited knowledge we had.”

“We started walking around, and it was like discovering a shallow grave, where the elements had blown the top layer off, and then the grave was exposed, and you could see a whole history,” he added. “We didn’t understand it, because we didn’t have the information. The only book out at the time, was called America’s Concentration Camps by Allan R. Bosworth. Of course, we didn’t have any movies, or any of the things we have now relative to the experience.”

Not long after the first Manzanar Pilgrimage in 1969, momentum began to grow to make a similar pilgrimage to the site of the Tule Lake Segregation Center, which is now part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument, administered by the National Park Service.

“The Tule Lake Pilgrimage started in 1975,” said panelist Stan Shikuma of the Tule Lake Committee, sponsor of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage. “I missed the first couple of pilgrimages, but, [by 1978], we were taking about 300 people to Tule Lake, which is very close to the Oregon border.”

“Out of the 300 people, I would guess five were Nisei,” added Shikuma, who was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, at the time. “Everyone else were students, so there wasn’t a lot of first-hand knowledge. It was kind of limited. But, starting in the early Eighties, after the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians hearings in 1981, there was a real opening up among the Nisei, in particular, to share their stories, so we started seeing more Nisei. In 1982 and 1984, we actually had ten or 15 Issei come and join us.”

One of the primary motivations for the Tule Lake Pilgrimage was to promote healing within the community.

“One of the people who was involved at the time, Stephanie Miyashiro, had a very firm conviction that the Pilgrimage wasn’t just about learning history, and it wasn’t just about seeking artifacts and looking at ruins,” Shikuma noted. “For her, the central core of what the Pilgrimage was all about was a healing process for the community, that there had been this great damage to the community, as a whole, [as well as] to individuals, and that the healing had never happened.”

“In order to help with the healing, we needed to start talking about what happened, and how it affected us,” Shikuma added. “Her idea was that you couldn’t do that in a big setting with 300 people, and it would take too much time to have 50 or 60 people come up and talk.”

The answer was to break up into smaller discussion groups.

Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“For many of us, we feel that was the core of what the Tule Lake Pilgrimage was all about, those intergenerational discussion groups, where people can talk about what happened, how it happened, how it made them feel, how it affected their families, and how it continues to affect their families,” Shikuma elaborated. “For those of us who weren’t born yet, how did we find out about [the camp experience], how did we feel about it, and how did it affect our lives? That’s a key thing.”

The Manzanar Committee added intergenerational discussions to the Manzanar Pilgrimage experience in 1997, during an evening event called Manzanar After Dark.

“We actually stole it from the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, where they have an intergenerational component to their pilgrimage,” said panelist Bruce Embrey, Co-Chair of the Manzanar Committee. “There are fewer and fewer incarcerees at the Pilgrimage, so it’s more difficult to get those direct stories.”

Since then, the event has evolved into a much larger program that is now known as Manzanar At Dusk, and has become a key part of the Manzanar Pilgrimage experience.

“[Manzanar At Dusk] is one of the most important parts of the Pilgrimage, because it allows an exploration of what actually occurred in an individual way, but in a much more intimate setting where people can draw out some of the lessons about what happened in camp,” Embrey explained.

“[Manzanar At Dusk] is so powerful because the younger generations are right there with the Nisei, so I think it’s one of the best things,” Embrey elaborated. “This past year, [college students] actually re-enacted some of the stories of people who survived camp, and you thought, ‘well, here’s some 18, 19 or twenty-year-old,’ but it was very effective, and very powerful to watch the younger generation portray what people had gone through.”

Students from the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU), who were among the students Embrey mentioned above, moderated the discussions.

“[NSU was involved with this event because] we’re always involved with the Manzanar Pilgrimage every year,” said Matt Ichinose, President of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union. “It’s important to know how much we can learn from the panelists, and how NSU can go forward in terms of its involvement with the Manzanar Pilgrimage.”

“I enjoyed listening to the presentations about Tule Lake, because my grandfather was incarcerated there, so I have a family attachment to that,” added Ichinose. “I enjoyed hearing about what they do at their pilgrimage.”

“For our organization, it was a good chance to hear about a different pilgrimage, because all we hear about is the Manzanar Pilgrimage, because that’s the one we go to. Hopefully, this will spur interest in the other pilgrimages as well.”

The event was also sponsored by The Aratani CARE grant, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

In the next story about this event, the future of the Manzanar and Tule Lake Pilgrimages, and the role students might play in them, not to mention throughout the Japanese American community, will be examined.

Unattributed views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Related Story:

• Future Of The Nikkei Community, Not Just The Manzanar And Tule Lake Pilgrimages, Was The Topic Of JANM Event

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey, shown here at the 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 23, 2010.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

The program is the first in a three-part series that will deal with the origins, the history, and the future of the Manzanar and Tule Lake Pilgrimages from the perspectives of those who were part of them.

The panel will also include Barbara Takei and Stan Shikuma, both active in the Tule Lake Committee.

The program will be moderated by the UCLA Nikkei Student Union, which has been an active participant in the Manzanar Pilgrimage since 1987, and has recently taken a leadership role in the Manzanar At Dusk program, held annually on the same evening as the Manzanar Pilgrimage.

This program is sponsored by The Aratani CARE grant, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

JANM is located at 369 East First Street (north side of the intersection of Central Avenue and First Street), Los Angeles, 90012:

For more information, contact JANM at (213) 625-0414, or check their web site at http://www.janm.org.

The Manzanar Committee is dedicated to educating and raising public awareness about the incarceration and violation of civil rights of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II and to the continuing struggle of all peoples when Constitutional rights are in danger. A non-profit organization that has sponsored the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since 1969, along with other educational programs, the Manzanar Committee has also played a key role in the establishment and continued development of the Manzanar National Historic Site.

You can follow the Manzanar Committee on Facebook and Twitter (@manzanarcomm).

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

The following is an update from the Manzanar National Historic Site.

The in-progress “Nishi Bridge” with turtle rock in the foreground.
To view a larger image, click on the image above.
Photo: Jeff Burton

MANZANAR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, NEAR INDEPENDENCE, CA — The second round of restoration work on the “Nishi Bridge” at Manzanar National Historic Site’s Merritt Park has been completed. The arched supports previously installed were reinforced, treads were added, and handrails were begun.

Barry Amos, who is leading the volunteer project in collaboration with the Nishi family, hopes to have the bridge completed soon.

Created by former Manzanar internees Kuichiro Nishi and Takio Muto, Merritt Park was a welcome respite from Manzanar’s stark barracks, barbed wire fences, and guard towers. Descendants of Kuichiro and their family and friends initiated the reconstruction of the historic bridge, an iconic, and much-photographed, feature of the park.

Jeff Burton is the Cultural Resource Program Manager at the Manzanar National Historic Site.

Views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Another photo of the restoration work:

Manzanar National Historic Site Superintendent Les Inafuku (left) and
volunteer Barry Amos (right) discuss construction details.
To view a larger image, click on the image above.
Photo: Jeff Burton

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Editor’s Note: UCLA Nikkei Student Union and UCLA Kyodo Taiko member Yoshimi Kawashima participated in her second Manzanar Pilgrimage this past April, at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. She shares her thoughts about her experiences with us below.

Yoshimi Kawashima
Photo: Gann Matsuda

The dust stirred gently in the opaque light of the rising sun, drifting along the near empty road. Eyes still drowsy from the four-hour trip, mind still struggling to awake from rising with the dawn light, we finally reached the parking lot which would lead to the Manzanar National Historic Site—my second time at the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since my freshman year at UCLA.

When I went to my first Manzanar Pilgrimage in April 2009, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was only newly exposed to the history of Japanese American Internment, and now, physically stepping into the forlorn desert they had once been forced to call home brought forth mixed emotions.

What does it mean to be a (Japanese) American of this generation?

I distinctly remember the car ride my first year, when one my of the upperclassmen and Board member of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU), Ed Kobayashi, elaborated on how Manzanar was one of the two internment camps in California during World War II, and every year, people from all walks of life come to make a pilgrimage to this historic site.

My initial feeling of detachment and indifference was borne from my ignorance—I knew it was significant but it was easy to listen to how the internees had to suffer, but not truly understand or comprehend the weight of those words.

Oh how the times have changed.

Memories of standing in the scorching sun amid the barren landscape along with my fellow NSU members dominated my initial impression of the camp. But this time, as a college junior, I searched for familiarity. My purpose on this pilgrimage was different. No longer was I making the pilgrimage for the organization which I was a part of, almost devoid of any knowledge of internment and Japanese Americans, Instead, I arrived as someone who had gained familiarity with the rich history.

Along with Eryn Tokuhara (left), Michelle Cheng (center, hidden), Kawashima (right)
carries the banner representing the Poston concentration camp at the 42nd Annual
Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 30, 2011.
Photo: Yuta Ebikawa

Experiencing the hot, dry heat of the desert, sleeping in the freezing temperatures at night at our camp site near Manzanar, listening directly to the stories by the Nisei, and seeing how many generations the stories touched, truly moved my heart.

As two years had gone by since my last visit, I still held tightly to that memory. But as time passes, so does the land, and so do the people.

There was familiarity and yet a distinct feeling of a change—a transition I had completely missed. All the upperclassmen who had accompanied me on my previous trip were nowhere to be found. To be sure, no longer was I just a mere observer this year, as I had the honor and privilege to perform with UCLA Kyodo Taiko to support the event, and was asked to carry the Poston banner with Eryn Tokuhara and Michelle Cheng, two of my fellow Kyodo members, in recognizing the ten different internment camps.

With the wind blowing, it was quite a trial for three small women to hold up the large banner. This experience brought to heart another dose of realization: being embraced into the Nikkei community.

Moreover, as I stood there holding the Poston banner, the man beside me inquired as to where I was from and what high school I attended. Little did I expect to meet one of the physical education teachers, Mr. Beadles, from Nobel Middle School (located in Northridge, California), at Manzanar. It struck me how small the world really is, and how far-reaching the Manzanar Pilgrimage and its message is.

The greatest difference between my first Pilgrimage and this year’s event was definitely the people I encountered, particularly with the Manzanar At Dusk (MAD) program. I remembered my first year—my discussion group had two elderly former internees who recounted their experiences in the camps: the confusion at being told to pack up their belongings in a single suitcase, the loyalty questionnaire, and that fighting in the war was a testament to the strength of the Japanese American community.

Kawashima (foreground, second from left) performs with UCLA Kyodo Taiko
at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 30, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

I am no longer the newbie who is completely unaware of the gravity of what occurred at Manzanar, the strength and sheer willpower of the Japanese American population, and the potential for invoking the impact each one of us holds to create change. Regardless of whether my grandparents may have been interned, as an American of this generation, I hold close to my heart the words of those with whom I had the privilege to speak at Manzanar At Dusk.

“As the next generation, you have a duty to not just hold what you hear today within you, but to pass it on.”

To be sure, the experience has the potential to touch more than one life.

Although many printed press, media, and interviews may have brought their stories to the light, what holds the greatest influence is directly hearing, not only from those who went through the experience, but from those who were touched by it. History repeats itself, not only because of the actors who play in the grand scheme of things, but by those who refuse to confront it and to apply the lessons learned by those who make the sacrifices. Nothing should ever be taken for granted.

Shikata ga nai. It cannot be helped. Perhaps we cannot change the past—that is truly sho ga nai. But we must take what we have learned and take action—never forget, but move on confidently, upholding the flow of time between generations. Issho ni ganbarimashou. Let us all work hard together, never forgetting, passing it on, and paying it forward.

Entering her senior year at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Yoshimi Kawashima, 21, is majoring in East Asian Studies and minoring in Cognitive Science. As a member of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union, she co-produced their 25th Annual Culture Night in 2011. A native of Van Nuys, California, Kawashima also performs with UCLA Kyodo Taiko, and served as an Aratani intern at the Japanese American National Museum in the summer of 2009, working for Discover Nikkei.

This story was reprinted on the Discover Nikkei web site on September 7, 2011: 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: The Passage of Time.

The views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Related Stories:

• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage Highlights the Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Struggle
• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: A Letter To Obaa-chan
• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: Reflecting and Revisiting Living History
• Connections And Common Bonds Are Key At Manzanar At Dusk Program
• Students Taking Leadership Role In 2011 Manzanar At Dusk Program
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/Manzanar At Dusk 2011 – A Personal Reflection
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/2011 Manzanar At Dusk: Keeping The Manzanar Story Alive
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: Everyone Has A Story To Tell, But Not Everyone Has A Chance To Tell Their Story

The Manzanar Committee encourages all those who may wish to share their thoughts, experiences and stories from the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and 2011 Manzanar At Dusk programs, held on April 30, 2011, to submit them for publication. Whether it is a story, commentary piece, poem, photographs, audio or video, we welcome your contributions for possible publication here on our blog.

For information on submitting your work, click on: About the Manzanar Committee/Contact Us.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Editor’s Note: After the 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, UCLA undergraduate Jaymie Takeshita reflected on her experiences at her first Manzanar Pilgrimage and Manzanar At Dusk program in a piece that has received rave reviews from readers, 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: A Letter To Obaa-chan. Takeshita’s involvement last year inspired her to become more deeply involved in this year’s events, and, once again, she shared her thoughts about her experiences with us.

by Jaymie Takeshita

Jaymie Takeshita
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“Auntie Pat, this is Jaymie,” I said, trying to cover my nerves with an equally friendly voice.

“Jaymie!” she said, excitedly, “It’s so wonderful to hear your voice.”

That’s exactly the reason why I called my great aunt. We’re alike in that sense—give us the chance to talk, and we’ll enthusiastically take full advantage of it. But I started to feel my nerves coming back again.

“Do you think you can help me out with a project I’m working on with my friends,” I asked.

She kindly agreed to give it a try.

“We want to hear stories about what your life was like…in camp, before and after. Since Grandma wasn’t old enough to remember as much, I felt like you’d be able to tell me more.”

“Well, if my stories would be okay, I’d love to help you with your project,” she replied.

And she did, even though she didn’t know exactly what that project was. For about an hour and a half, she told me as many stories as she could think of—most of them made me laugh, some of them made my eyes tear up.

“Is that enough for you and your friends to finish your project? I hope it is,” she laughed. It was more than enough, so we just started talking about regular stuff—our family, her upcoming Poston III camp reunion.

“I’m going on the Manzanar Pilgrimage again this weekend,” I told her.

She was so excited for me.

“Isn’t that wonderful,” she said. “I’m so glad that there are young people who are interested in things like camp. I wanted to go this year, but I don’t think I could walk out there.”

UCLA Nikkei Student Union’s Odori dance group led the traditional Ondo dancing at the
42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. Takeshita is pictured at the far left.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“Don’t worry, Auntie Pat,” I wanted to say. “We’ll tell your story for you.”

From walking in my yukata from the Manzanar parking lot to the cemetery (a word of advice: don’t), to the extremely insightful talk we held in my discussion group at the Manzanar At Dusk program that evening, every part of this year’s Manzanar Pilgrimage was extremely memorable for me.

I had the honor of being able to present the Camp Roll Call during the day program. I clearly remember trying to steady my shaking hands as I read the name of each camp, and the number of people who were forced to start a new life in camp. Calling out “Poston” in my high pitched voice felt like a really important moment in my life because that is where my grandparents lived a huge part of their lives. Although it was only a few years, some of their strongest memories, both enjoyable and painful ones, happened at Poston. I thought of my grandparents as I read the number.

My favorite part of the day program was listening to Mary Kageyama Nomura perform. Her voice sounded amazing, and I am sure that she was able to brighten so many people’s lives during camp when they needed it most. I am truly grateful to have had the chance to listen to such a beautiful voice.

Helping to lead this year’s dances, One Plus One and Tanko Bushi, was the most fun I had at the Pilgrimage. Ondo has a special place in my heart because it brings people of all ages together, as it has been doing for so many generations. Whether one has been doing the dances since childhood and knows them all by heart, or has “mined for coal” in their life, it’s impossible not to smile while doing Ondo together. I saw the magic of Ondo, and felt the sense of community it created.

UCLA Nikkei Student Union member
Katrina Kuraishi tells the story of
Takeshita’s great aunt, Pat, at the 2011 Manzanar At Dusk program.
Photo: James To

And that’s exactly what happened. One of my closest friends, Katrina Kuraishi, was chosen to read Auntie Pat’s narrative. I remember Katrina telling me that she was nervous about being the presenter, because she teared up every time she practiced it. Yet she was the perfect person for it.

As she read, I could hear Auntie Pat’s voice, not Katrina’s. I had to try my best to hold back the tears as she spoke about the time when her father came back to their family for the first time after being taken away for questioning. Katrina conveyed the same emotions that Auntie Pat did. It was as if Auntie Pat herself were standing up there, telling everyone about how amazing it was that her high school class was able to create a normal campus life, with sports, clubs, and even a yearbook. I felt like crying because I wished Auntie Pat could have sat next to me and listened to it in person. I felt like crying because I was so happy that her story could be heard.

The week after the Manzanar Pilgrimage, after Auntie Pat’s Poston III reunion, I called her. She had given my Grandma a collection of stories she wrote about her teenage camp life to pass on to me. I wanted to thank her for that, and for so much more.

“Auntie Pat? This is Jaymie,” I said, feeling a little bit nervous again for some reason.

“Oh, Jaymie! It’s so wonderful to hear your voice,” she replied, as expected.

She asked me if I had received her book, and said she had a wonderful time at the reunion because she got to see all of her friends. Then she asked me about the Pilgrimage.

“It was really good,” I started. “But, you know, remember how you helped me on a project last week?”

“Yes, did it go okay,” she asked. “Do you need more information for it?”

“No, no, it went great,” I replied. “But actually, it was for the Manzanar Pilgrimage.”

Takeshita (wearing pink sweatshirt) facilitates a small group discussion at the 2011 Manzanar At Dusk program on April 30, 2011.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“Yeah. I took all of the stories you told me last week, and sorta…reorganized them into one long story,” I explained, excitedly. “And then one of my friends read it at the Manzanar At Dusk program.”

“Oh-my-goodness!” she exclaimed, happily.

As Auntie Pat thanked me over and over again, telling me how important it was for the young people to listen, I couldn’t help but remember what Auntie Pat had told me last time I talked to her on the phone. She had sounded sad when she explained how her and her parent’s generation are referred to as the “Silent Generation.”

“I know that,” she said. “But I don’t want to be a forgotten generation. My story is part of my country’s history…it should be told. Everyone has a story to tell.”

Everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone has the chance to tell their story. Storytelling is more difficult than it seems. Remembering is not only enjoyable and nostalgic, but also painful and difficult. Listening is entertaining, but sometimes we hear things we might not have wanted to know. To be able to get a chance to tell a story, or even just ask to listen to a story, sometimes we need a little bit of help, a little push. I will forever be grateful to the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage for giving me the push I needed to ask, and the chance for Auntie Pat’s story to be heard.

Jaymie Takeshita, 20, from Northridge, California, recently completed her third year at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she is an undergraduate studying Psychology. She is a member of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU), serving as one of the Co-Directors for NSU Odori and on their Community Service committee.

The views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

Related Stories:

• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage Highlights the Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Struggle
• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: A Letter To Obaa-chan
• 41st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: Reflecting and Revisiting Living History
• Connections And Common Bonds Are Key At Manzanar At Dusk Program
• Students Taking Leadership Role In 2011 Manzanar At Dusk Program
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/Manzanar At Dusk 2011 – A Personal Reflection
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage/2011 Manzanar At Dusk: Keeping The Manzanar Story Alive
• 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: The Passage of Time

The Manzanar Committee encourages all those who may wish to share their thoughts, experiences and stories from the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and 2011 Manzanar At Dusk programs, held on April 30, 2011, to submit them for publication. Whether it is a story, commentary piece, poem, photographs, audio or video, we welcome your contributions for possible publication here on our blog.

For information on submitting your work, click on: About the Manzanar Committee/Contact Us.

Unless otherwise specified, all stories, images, video and audio content on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story, image, video or audio content published on this site under the terms of this license, but only if proper attribution is indicated. The full name of the author and a link back to the original article on this blog are required.

Manzanar Committee Comment Policies

Editor’s Note: As I was standing in front of the audience, relating my experiences with, and my deep admiration for, Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, at the July 17, 2011 event in which the Manzanar Committee honored her (see Manzanar Committee Lauds Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga With Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award On July 17, 2011), I could not help but think of former Manzanar Committee chair Sue Kunitomi Embrey, who passed away back in May 2006. The following is a piece I wrote about Sue that was published in the June 14, 2006 edition of the Rafu Shimpo.

Sue Kunitomi Embrey (center) listens intently during a small group session at the 2004 Manzanar At Dusk program, held at the VFW Hall in Independence, California.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

And before you think that I have gone off the deep end for bringing up ice hockey in a column about Embrey, please indulge me for a moment.

At that mid-April press conference, in his introductory remarks, Kings radio play-by-play announcer Nick Nickson said about Robitaille, “…we hate to see the great ones go.”

Fast forward back to the present and that comment about Robitaille clearly applies to Embrey as well, albeit in a different context.

I first met Embrey in 1986, back when I was an undergraduate at UCLA. I was heavily involved in the UCLA Nikkei Student Union (NSU) and the UCLA Asian Pacific Coalition at the time, and one evening, she came to an event on campus where Asian American women role models were honored.

As one of the honorees, Embrey told her story about how she was imprisoned at Manzanar as a young adult, how she became a community activist and how she and the Manzanar Committee were fighting to preserve Manzanar so that future generations would learn about the history and the injustice of the concentration camps so that no one else would suffer the same fate.

The fact that Embrey was one of the few Nisei who actually spoke openly of her experiences in camp left a big impression on me. She also talked about her work as a life-long educator, as a labor activist and as a social justice advocate.

I was so inspired by Embrey’s comments that night that I organized the first NSU trips to the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage from 1987-89. Moreover, except for one year when I had a cold, I have not missed a Pilgrimage since that time—it has become an annual tradition, even though no one in my immediate or distant family had been imprisoned, and I have Embrey and the Manzanar Committee to thank for that.

In 1991, when planning began for the year-long series of events here in Los Angeles and at UCLA to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Japanese American Internment (1992), I got my first chance to work extensively with Sue (by this time, I knew her well enough to address her by her first name) and the Manzanar Committee. We spent many hours in planning meetings and in our work on what would be the largest Manzanar Pilgrimage ever in terms of attendance (over 2,000 people attended the 1992 Pilgrimage).

It was also during this time that Sue and the Manzanar Committee were working very hard to establish Manzanar as a National Historic Site. As I worked with her more and more, my admiration for her work, her fighting spirit, and her seemingly tireless dedication to the cause grew exponentially.

Shortly after the legislation to establish the Manzanar National Historic Site was enacted in March, 1992—our community could not have reached this great milestone without Sue—I joined the Manzanar Committee and later, I was honored to be appointed along with Sue to the Manzanar National Historic Site Advisory Commission, and I served with her for eight years.

During that time, Sue spent countless hours writing letters, talking on the telephone with National Park Service staff, lobbying members of Congress and so much more, all in our efforts to get the Manzanar National Historic Site up and running, despite an acute lack of funding in the first few years, not to mention initial opposition by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which was a real pain in the neck because they seemed to be concerned only about their water rights in the area.

During those early years of our time on the Advisory Commission, we worked with Ross Hopkins, the first Superintendent of the Manzanar National Historic Site. Ross was another person who deserves a lot of credit for Manzanar being what it is today, and his recent comments expressed what many people feel about Sue.

“In my 42 years of government service as a National Park Ranger, I never met or worked with anyone as selfless and as dedicated as Sue to the mission of ensuring in a positive way that what happened to people during this sad chapter of our country’s history would never be forgotten,” said Hopkins. “And hopefully, because of her efforts, never be repeated without an outcry from the American people.”

“It was a pleasure and a privilege to work with Sue, and I cannot think of anyone for whom I had more respect for her steadfastness of purpose, and admiration for her devotion to her cause,” added Hopkins. “She was truly an American.”

But even with the obstacles in our path in those early years of development, including lots of red tape created by the Federal bureaucracy, in her reserved, yet tough manner, Sue’s efforts were instrumental in getting us to where we are today—there is now a full-fledged Interpretive Center at Manzanar. And although there is still more work to be done, Sue’s dream of creating the Manzanar National Historic Site so that future generations can learn about the internment has been fulfilled.

Thankfully, Sue lived to see her dream become reality, and in her speech at the grand opening of the Interpretive Center on April 24, 2004, she talked about the importance of Manzanar.

“People ask me why it’s important to remember and keep Manzanar alive with this Interpretive Center,” said Embrey. “My answer is that stories like this need to be told, and too many of us have passed away without telling our stories.”

“The Interpretive Center is important because it needs to show to the world that America is strong as it makes amends for the wrongs it has committed, and that we will always remember Manzanar because of that.”

As I listened to her remarks, I could not help but think that Sue exemplified the same strength that she spoke of on that very hot April day at Manzanar. I hate to think about where our community would be without her fierce determination to make Manzanar a National Historic Site and to educate people about the internment.

“Because of her, hundreds of thousands of people have learned about the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II,” said Alisa Lynch, Chief of Interpretation for the Manzanar National Historic Site. “As she helped us all understand, it is American history, not just Japanese American history. Sue left a legacy that will live for generations.”

Indeed, with the establishment of the Manzanar National Historic Site and its Interpretive Center, Sue’s legacy will live on. But that legacy will also live on in the hearts and minds of the many people whose lives she has touched, either directly or indirectly, because of the inspirational way she taught us all about the importance of educating others about the internment.

Sue, you will forever be one of the great ones, and for all you have done for our community, a belated thank you. You will be sorely missed.

The views expressed in this story are those of the author, and are not necessarily those of the Manzanar Committee.

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