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

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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

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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.

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Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga (center), shown here with Manzanar Committee Co-Chairs Kerry Cababa (left) and Bruce Embrey (right), received the Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award on July 17, 2011 in Gardena, California.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

The award is named after the late chair of the Manzanar Committee who was one of the founders of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and was the driving force behind the creation of the Manzanar National Historic Site.

But Herzig-Yoshinaga, now 87 years old, was unable to attend the event, which is held at the Manzanar National Historic Site, approximately 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Despite a mishap that occured not long after the Pilgrimage that resulted in a broken collarbone, Herzig-Yoshinaga looked as strong as ever when the Los Angeles-based Manzanar Committee, sponsors of the annual Pilgrimage since 1969, along with the Manzanar At Dusk program, honored her during an informal gathering on July 17 at the Merit Park Recreation Room in Gardena, California.

Herzig-Yoshinaga’s family and friends joined the Manzanar Committee in lauding her efforts on behalf of her community, and in presenting her with the award.

“[Manzanar Committee member and legal counsel] Rose Ochi, and my uncle, Jack [Kunitomi], came up with the idea of the Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award,” said Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey. “Rose said that my mother would be remembered for her tenacity, her passion, and her purpose. This is what we see this award as. We give it to people who are extremely passionate, who are tenacious, and who have purpose. Aiko can clearly fit that bill, and beyond.”

“This award honors those in our community who have given us a sense of purpose, and helped us with our passion, and have kept us going,” added Embrey. “We hope to be as tenacious as they have been, and that we will continue to fight for, and continue to push the broader society to understand what actually happened to the Nikkei community on the West Coast. That’s why we give this award.”

To view a larger image of the Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award, click on the image above.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“I want to thank everybody, the Manzanar Committee in particular, for all the work that went into putting this very informal, but very friendly gathering [together], and I appreciate everybody, even though [the expected traffic nightmare caused by the closing of the San Diego Freeway in the West Los Angeles area] didn’t happen,” said Herzig-Yoshinaga. “I appreciate you making the effort to come, my family members and all my close friends. It’s so nice to have you here, to participate and to share in this honor.”

“I just feel bigger than life,” added Herzig-Yoshinaga. “My head should be busting with all the nice things that have been said about me. But I want everybody to know that what I did, I did because of what other people—[they] had already laid out the path for me—Michi Weglyn, William Hohri, Dr. [Arthur] Hansen, Dr. [Donald] Hata. All of these people had already done a lot of work, and I just built upon it. So I have to acknowledge and I need to acknowledge and thank them for all the work they did, like Nadine Hata, who fought for the words ‘concentration camp’ for Manzanar.”

Herzig-Yoshinaga is also at the heart of the current push for the use of accurate, non-euphemistic terminology to describe the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Her paper, Words Can Lie Or Clarify: Terminology Of The World War II Incarceration Of Japanese Americans, details the euphemisms that have long been used to describe the experience.

“Let’s say it like it was,” she told the crowd of approximately fifty. “When you’re not allowed to leave the camp, or enter the camp [without permission], and you have to have permission to leave your own home, what else is it but a prison, or concentration camp?”

“I consider it sort like an American-style apartheid,” she added. “We were not permitted to live in certain areas, and we were confined to a specific area, just like in South Africa until they were able to get rid of it.”

Herzig-Yoshinaga credited the Manzanar Committee as the first of the camp organizations to call for the use of the appropriate language, as far back as 1972.

“I want to congratulate the Manzanar Committee for being the first camp committee to push for preservation of the ten different camps as historic sites, and to use the appropriate words, [such as] ‘concentration camp,’ though many people object to that, and we’ve been hearing a lot more about it recently,” Herzig-Yoshinaga noted.

Herzig-Yoshinaga got her start as an activist in New York, having moved there after camp.

“After I moved to New York—it wasn’t easy bringing up three kids in New York City, believe me,” she recalled. “But I hooked up with a group called Asian Americans for Action (AAA). [They were] primarily Nisei (second generation Americans of Japanese ancestry, the children of the first generation, the Issei, immigrants from Japan), who were my age, which was unusual to have such a progressive group of people my age, who were very much social activists.”

“They used to meet and discuss political issues, as well as issues facing ethnic minorities, particularly Third World people,” she added. “They turned my head around. They got me to think, ‘yeah, I never thought about all the reasons why the government did this to us.’”

“I just hadn’t given it enough thought. I was just like all the other Niseis who thought, ‘forget it, that’s behind us.’”

Little did her fellow AAA members know, but they had awakened a giant.

“They awoke in me a curiosity,” said Herzig-Yoshinaga. “I learned a great deal from them,” said Herzig-Yoshinaga. “Then, I met Michi Weglyn, who wrote Years Of Infamy: The Untold Story Of America’s Concentration Camps. “She was the first Nisei to write about her own experiences as a victim.”

“Historically, she did a wonderful job to look up details about how it happened, and a lot of who was responsible for making those decisions,” added Herzig-Yoshinaga. “That was instrumental in inspiring me to look into it.”

Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga (foreground, third from right), shown here with her family.
Photo: Gann Matsuda

“The more I learned in the National Archives, the angrier I got,” she recalled. “As I saw these primary documents, and what they thought of us as ‘little brown men,’ or people whose brains are formed in such a way as to predispose us to do evil things—that was [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s idea of what Japanese people were like. This is one little tidbit I learned in my research, that he believed in this so much, that he actually hired a famous anthropologist to confirm what he said.”

“Of course, the anthropologist played politics. ‘Oh, you’re right Mr. Roosevelt.’ It’s all written up in professional journals.”

Even before she, and late husband Jack Herzig, uncovered the “smoking gun” evidence that the United States Government had suppressed, altered and destroyed evidence that detailed the racist, unconstitutional arguments used to justify the incarceration, Herzig-Yoshinaga’s role as a researcher for the Commission had already helped lay crucial groundwork for the redress struggle to move forward.

“I’m glad that the Commission issued its report that helped Manzanar to get the preservation site started, and to set forth the approval for using the term, “concentration camp” to designate those camps that we lived in as such,” she noted. “I had a lot of friends in the National Archives who helped me dig out information that I was able to present to the Commission, which laid the basis for the report it presented to Congress. That helped the Congress to pass the redress [legislation].”

Herzig-Yoshinaga, who was incarcerated first at Manzanar, in Block 12, Building 13, apartment 2, and was transferred to the camps at Jerome and, later, Rohwer, both in Arkansas, also credited others for their work during the redress struggle.

“I’m so happy that everybody has been really supportive,” she said. “During the redress movement, the Manzanar Committee did a lot of work, and there were a lot of different groups, like NCRR [known then as], the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations [now known as Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress], and NCJAR [National Coalition for Japanese American Redress].”

“Everybody did their bit to help push for redress, and I think the Commissions’s findings that the government did indeed perpetuate and initiate the wrongful act against an innocent minority group was the reason we got redress, and an apology by the President,” she added.

Herzig-Yoshinaga also expressed hope for the future.

“Let’s hope that the educational work being done by, thank goodness, all these young people who are picking up the cudgel and leading the fight now, the American public is going to learn more and more about this, and, perhaps, face the truth that even though redress happened, a lot of people don’t know that our government did such a grievous wrong against a minority group,” she stressed.

As mentioned earlier, Herzig-Yoshinaga’s family, both her immediate relatives and most of her extended family, were in attendance, sharing in the honor and the celebration.

“I’m very proud of the role my son-in-law, [California Assemblyman and Manzanar Pilgrimage co-founder] Warren Furutani, played to get some of this work started way back, over [forty] years ago, and I’m glad to be part of this wonderful family that I have here,” she said.

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

Related Stories:

• Manzanar Committee Honors Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga At 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage
• Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga To Receive 2011 Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award at 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage

This story was reprinted in the July 27, 2011 edition of the Rafu Shimpo (print edition), and on their web site (see Manzanar Commitee Lauds Herzig-Yoshinaga with Embrey Legacy Award) on July 28, 2011.

Raw audio of the event (47:35; due to less than ideal recording conditions, audio quality varies. You may need to increase the volume during portions of this recording; requires Adobe Flash Player):

You can also watch a video clip of portions of the presentation below:

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The following is a letter from Karen Korematsu, Co-Founder of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute For Civil Rights and Education. It was intended to be read during the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, held on April 30, 2011, where her father was honored. However, the letter was not received in time. As such, we are publishing it here.

April 30, 2011

Manzanar Pilgrimage

Dear Teachers, Students and Community Members,

On Sunday, January 30, 2011, we celebrated California’s first Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. This is the first statewide day to be named after an Asian American in United States History.

Last year, Assemblymember Warren Furutani of the 55th District, and also founder of the Manzanar Pilgrimage, introduced legislative bill AB 1775 that established this special day. He carried it through the Assembly and Senate with unanimous votes and Governor Schwarzenegger signed the bill.

For those of you who do not know, my father, Fred T. Korematsu, had the famous U.S. Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. United States that challenged the 1942 military orders to incarcerate anyone of Japanese ancestry during World War II. My father was born in Oakland, California, and was an American in every sense of the word. He learned about the U.S. Constitution in high school, knew his rights and thought the forced removal orders were unconstitutional, as the Japanese Americans never were charged with a crime, had no public hearings and deprived of due process. For various reasons my father refused to report. Ultimately, he was arrested and convicted of defying the government’s orders.

In 1982, Professor Peter Irons, a legal historian and attorney, and Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga along with her husband, uncovered the hidden evidence that proved there was no military necessity for anyone of Japanese descent to be put in the 10+ concentration camps throughout the U.S. On that basis my father’s case was reopened and his conviction was overturned in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in 1983. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history.

My father felt that in order for something like the incarceration not to happen again to another ethnic group because “they looked like the enemy,” education would be key. He crisscrossed the United States speaking to universities, law schools and organizations about his fight for justice for all.

In 1998, my father received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this nation’s highest civilian honor from President Clinton. After 9/11, my father continued to speak out about the dangers of racial profiling and suspicious acts in the name of “National Security.”

My father passed away in 2005, but his legacy carries on in his name of three California public schools: Korematsu Discovery Academy, East Oakland; Korematsu Elementary, Davis; Korematsu Campus at San Leandro High School plus the Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle Law School and the Korematsu Institute in San Francisco.

I’m sorry that I can’t be with you, and I’m envious of your exciting journey to Manzanar, as I have not made this trip but plan to do so soon. My hope for all of you, after this pilgrimage, is that you will take what you have learned and teach and tell the stories about this dark period of our history. My father’s birthday is January 30, and Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution will be celebrated on that date in perpetuity. However the lessons can be taught any time of the year and not only are they about my father’s fight for justice but also about the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans that were persecuted, as their stories need to be told. The past needs to be related to the relevancy of the issues we face today in this country and we need to be persistent in teaching the lessons of history so that the children of today and tomorrow can make the right decisions that will safeguard our country.

Remember, Fred Korematsu was one man that made a difference, Stood Up For What is Right and said “When You See Something Wrong, Don’t Be Afraid to Speak Up!”

Sincerely,
Karen Korematsu, Co-Founder
Fred T. Korematsu Institute For Civil Rights and Education
At The Asian Law Caucus

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Photo: Darrell Kunitomi

Approximately 200 students were forced to leave the campus not long after the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.

Not all of the former students who were identified and located attended the ceremony in UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall. But 48 former students or a family representative were in attendance, receiving diplomas with the Latin phrase, Inter Silvas Academi Restituere Iustitiam, which means “to restore justice among the groves of the academe.”

The following is the full video of the ceremony (length: 1:10:06). @ 2010 The Regents of the University of California. Used with permission.

Related Stories:
UCLA: Bruins Return 70 Years Later To Receive Honorary Degrees
UCLA Seeks Japanese American Students Whose Education Was Interrupted During World War II
UCLA: A Wrong Finally Made Right
University of California To Grant Honorary Degrees To Japanese American Students Forced to Leave UC Campuses During WWII

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

In recent weeks, more California colleges and universities bestowed honorary degrees on former Japanese American students who were forced to leave their respective campuses due to their forced relocation from the West Coast and imprisonment in American concentration camps during World War II.

Here’s a wrap-up of the media coverage:

California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (June 7, 2010)
Icing on the Cake: CSU Completes Its Nisei Diploma Project WIth Final Ceremony At Cal Poly – Rafu Shimpo
Dan Krieger: Unjust Past Rectified By Honoring Present – San Luis Obispo Tribune
Cal Poly Rights A World War II Wrong – San Luis Obispo Tribune

Los Angeles City College (June 8, 2010)
Monterey Park Woman, Placed In WWII Internment Camp, Finally Receives College Degree – Pasadena Star News

Imperial Valley College (June 12, 2010)
Imperial Valley College Awards Japanese Americans Of WWII With Honorary Degrees – Imperial Valley Press

Pasadena City College (June 18, 2010)
PCC Students Graduate In Historic Ceremony – Pasadena Star News
Degrees Come 68 Years Later For Japanese American Graduates Of PCC’s Class Of 1942 – Pasadena Star News

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

Several campuses in the California State University system along with a number of California Community Colleges held commencement ceremonies recently in which former Japanese American students who were forced to leave their respective campuses due to their forced relocation from the West Coast and imprisonment in American concentration camps during World War II received honorary degrees.

Ceremonies still on tap:

June 7, 2010: California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo
June 8: Los Angeles City College, Compton Junior College (now El Camino College – Compton Community Educational Center)
June 12: Imperial Valley College
June 18: Pasadena City College
July 12: Azusa Pacific University (private college)

Here’s a wrap-up of the news coverage from some of the CSU campuses:

Fresno State (California State University, Fresno)
Fresno State News – Public Attends Fresno State’s Historic Nisei Honorary Degree Ceremony
Rafu Shimpo – Fresno Honors Nisei Graduates

California State University, Dominguez Hills
Daily Breeze – CSUDH Honors WWII Internees
CSU Dominguez Hills – CSU Dominguez Hills College of Professional Studies Commencement – Keynote Address By Warren Furutani

San Jose State University
San Jose Mercury News – Nisei Woman, 87, and Other Japanese Americans To Be Honored By San Jose State
Spartan Daily (San Jose State) – Japanese American Detainees and Students Honored At SJSU Graduation

Bakersfield Junior College (now Bakersfield College)
Bakersfield Californian – Degree Long Overdue

Fullerton College
Rafu Shimpo – A Walk Delayed
Orange County Register – Diplomas, At Last, For World War II Internees
North County Times – OCEANSIDE: Woman To Get Degree After 68 Years

Sacramento City College
Sacramento Bee – Nearly 70 Years Later, Former Students To Get Diplomas

California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (ceremony to be held on June 7, 2010)
San Luis Obispo Tribune – Dan Krieger: Future Poly President Stood Up For Japanese

Fresno State News also produced a news video reporting on their ceremony:

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The following is a story from UCLA Today, UCLA’s faculty and staff newsletter. It is reprinted here with permission. Original story: Bruins Return 70 Years Later To Receive Honorary Degrees.

48 of the 200 former Japanese American students (or their representatives) who were
forced to leave UCLA due to their forced relocation and imprisonment in
American concentration camps during World War II received honorary
degrees in a May 15, 2010 ceremony at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.
Photo: Todd Cheney/UCLA Photo

The auditorium in Schoenberg Hall was dark, save for a spotlight that shone on a single musician on stage. He raised a shakuhachi—a Japanese flute—to his lips and began to play a beautiful, mournful melody.

The curtain rose, revealing a group of degree candidates seated on the stage, clad in cap and gown. Joyful cheers burst forth from the packed house, followed by a long and enthusiastic standing ovation. The degree candidates smiled, and a few wiped away tears, as the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” filled the hall.

Although all the traditional elements were there, this May 15 event was not your usual commencement ceremony, nor was this your usual group of soon-to-be graduates. These were 48 of the nearly 200 Japanese American former students—or, in some cases, their representatives—who had been forced to leave UCLA and enter internment camps when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in the winter of 1942.

Some of them went on to finish their degrees at Midwestern colleges that would accept Japanese American students, while others opted not to return to school. Still others, such as head yell leader Hitoshi “Moe” Yonemura, who was killed in Italy in 1945 while serving in the U.S. Army’s famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, never returned home at all.

But for those who could come, this was a special day. Since 1972, the University of California had not granted honorary degrees, but in 2009 the Board of Regents approved a rare exception for these students. So these Nisei (second-generation) Bruins—most in their late 80’s and early 90’s—happily returned to UCLA from points across the country to receive an honorary degree from their alma mater.

“This morning, we will confer an honorary degree on our UCLA students whose education was interrupted due to Executive Order 9066,” said Chancellor Gene Block. “Yet all of us have come to recognize that it is you who have bestowed an honor upon us. Each of you has uplifted us by your grace and by the lives you have led. We know there are remarkable stories represented by each of the honorees today, as well as by those who are with us only in spirit.”

Tritia Toyota, a UCLA alumna who holds an appointment as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anthropology and Asian American Studies at UCLA, served as master of ceremonies.

She introduced the morning’s speakers, including Lane Hirabayashi, the UCLA George and Sakaye Aratani Professor of the Japanese American Redress, Internment and Community, and chair of the Department of Asian American Studies. Hirabayashi relayed the story of his father, Jim, who was denied admission to Washington State University because the school’s “quota” of Japanese American students had been filled.

Hirabayashi’s uncle, Gordon, is well-known throughout the Japanese American community for his efforts to fight the U.S. Government’s curfew and mass incarceration orders. Gordon served time in federal penitentiaries but insisted on working toward his bachelor’s degree, a feat that took nine years.

Representing current UCLA students was Edward Kobayashi, President of the UCLA Nikkei Student Union, who said he was grateful for the privilege of joining the honorees in the Class of 2010.

“For students of my generation, internment is a concept that is difficult to grasp, much less understand,” he said. “That is why I believe that this ceremony, along with all the other honorary degree ceremonies across California, has particular significance to the younger generation.”

“Today, we enjoy living in a diverse society, where most people of different ethnicities and sexual orientations are accepted and treated with respect. This is the privilege that exists today as a result of the foundations that previous generations have laid for us, and the struggles they have overcome.”

Fumio Robert Naka, who was selected to give the honoree address, traveled from his home in Concord, Massachusetts to attend the ceremony. Naka left UCLA as a sophomore but managed to obtain electrical engineering degrees from the University of Missouri (B.S. ’45), the University of Minnesota (M.S. ’47) and Harvard University (Ph.D. ’51). Naka went on to have an illustrious career as one of the nation’s foremost engineers, and his work on the U2 and Oxcart aircraft was the precursor to stealth technology.

“‘To restore justice among the groves of academia,’ that is quite an admission of the difficult times we faced under presidential decree in the spring of 1942,” Naka said. “The U.S. Government had dug a great, big hole into which we were thrust, and out of which we had to climb to make our way.”

The honorary degrees would not have existed had it not been for the efforts of the keynote speaker, California Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach), who wrote the legislative bill that made it possible to confer degrees upon those who were forced to leave postsecondary studies as a result of Executive Order 9066.

“What we celebrate today…what we honor today…what we acknowledge today really is not a lesson in history alone,” said Furutani, whose parents met at the Rohwer internment camp in Arkansas. “It is not a stroll down the path to nostalgia. It’s a reality that lessons learned must be codified; lessons learned must be embraced. And if not, those problems and those mistakes will be made again.”

The audience was then treated to a performance by Yukai Daiko, a UCLA student taiko (drum) group, followed by the conferral of the honorary degrees.

Chancellor Block and UCLA Registrar Anita Cotter distributed the degrees while the names of the honorees were read by Professor Emeritus Don Nakanishi, chair of the UCLA Honorary Degree Task Force, and Professor Valerie Matsumoto of the UCLA Departments of History and Asian American Studies.

In many cases, honorees who had died or who were too ill to attend were represented on stage by husbands, wives, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, nephews and nieces. The mood in the hall was lively as the announcement of each name drew loud and sustained applause. After the ceremony, attendees were invited to a reception at the Faculty Center.

Robert Nakazawa, still in his cap and gown, continued to snap pictures of his family after the ceremony was over. His four siblings had chosen him to represent their father, Masao Nakazawa.

“I think my father would have been very, very proud,” he said. “It was a very difficult time for Japanese Americans. But the Japanese Americans turned out to be a very strong and very accomplished people of whom we are extremely proud—not only my father, but all the other honorees who are here today.”

One of those honorees was Shigeo Yuge, Tritia Toyota’s uncle.

“He actually graduated in the Midwest because he got relocated from camp,” Toyota said. “He said to me, ‘This is not a big deal.’ And I said, ‘Of course, it’s a big deal!’ So it was kind of nice that he was here with my cousin and her husband. I wish that my aunt were still alive to see this. She would have loved it.”

The honorary degree ceremony took about six months to plan, according to Don Nakanishi, who said that the hardest part was trying to locate all the former students. The UCLA Honorary Degree Task Force relied on different methods to reach as many people as possible, including disseminating press releases and flyers to churches and community groups.

“I think it was wise for us to hold this event today as opposed to June, because it would have been lost in all the different Commencement activities,” Nakanishi said. “Fittingly, it was held during UCLA Day, when alumni come back to campus. This was an appropriate group to welcome into the UCLA community.”

In a quiet corner of the Faculty Center patio, Masaye Nagao Nakamura, 86, was enjoying the day with her granddaughter, Jill Nakamura. The two had driven down from the Bay Area with other family members to attend the ceremony.

“I thought it was wonderful,” Masaye said. “You know, at my age, to have something like this happen to me is pretty special. I can tell my grand kids I got an honorary degree from UCLA.”

Jill added, “I graduated from UC Irvine in 2008, and she was there for me. So this is great that I get to be here for her now. I’m just so proud of her.”

Related Stories:
Honorary Degrees Awarded At UCLA To Former Japanese American Students
UCLA: A Wrong Finally Made Right
UCLA Seeks Japanese American Students Whose Education Was Interrupted During World War II
University of California To Grant Honorary Degrees To Japanese American Students Forced to Leave UC Campuses During WWII

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

Photo: Darrell Kunitomi

Approximately 200 students were forced to leave the campus not long after the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.

Not all of the former students who were identified and located attended the ceremony in UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall. But 48 former students or a family representative were in attendance, receiving diplomas with the Latin phrase, Inter Silvas Academi Restituere Iustitiam, which means “to restore justice among the groves of the academe.”

Here’s a wrap-up of the more significant stories published about the event:

Rafu Shimpo: Pride of Westwood by Gwen Muranaka
Los Angeles Times: UCLA Awards Honorary Degrees To Japanese Americans Who Were Interned by Patrick McDonnell
Los Angeles Times: Photos: UCLA’s Japanese American Honorees by Irfan Khan
Pacific Citizen: UCLA ‘Restores Justice’ By Awarding Nisei Honorary Degrees by Nalea J. Ko
LA Observed: UCLA Does Right By A Neighborhood Teacher And Mom by Jenny Burman
Fly Fisherman: My Mom Gets Her UCLA Degree Tomorrow, Posthumous by Darrell Kunitomi
Clark’s Classic Bamboo Rod Forum: Follow Up, Dad Got The Diploma From UCLA by Darrell Kunitomi
Bruins Nation: Dad Gets His UCLA Degree! by Randall L. Taylor
UCLA Daily Bruin: Internees To Receive Degrees by Kelly Zhou

UCLA Daily Bruin Radio: After 70 Years, Japanese American Students Forced Into WWII Internment Camps Finally Receive UCLA Degrees by Shaina Pan (4:58; click on the right arrow below to listen; © 2010 UCLA Daily Bruin/UCLA Communications Board. Used with permission):

UCLA Daily Bruin Video: Making A Wrong Right: UCLA Awards Honorary Degrees To World War II Internees (via YouTube) by Jennifer Kutsunai:

UCLA also produced a highlight video of the ceremony (3:30):

Related Stories:
Honorary Degrees Awarded At UCLA To Former Japanese American Students – Watch The Video Here (Full video of the ceremony)
UCLA: Bruins Return 70 Years Later To Receive Honorary Degrees
UCLA Seeks Japanese American Students Whose Education Was Interrupted During World War II
UCLA: A Wrong Finally Made Right
University of California To Grant Honorary Degrees To Japanese American Students Forced to Leave UC Campuses During WWII

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