Kyodo Taiko To Perform at the 54th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage

Follow @manzanarcomm

PILGRIMAGE: Bus transportation is still available from Downtown Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — Kyodo Taiko at UCLA will perform at the 54th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, sponsored by the Manzanar Committee, on Saturday, April 29, 2023, starting at 12:00 PM PDT, conditions permitting, at the Manzanar National Historic Site, located on U.S. Highway 395 in California’s Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine and Independence, approximately 230 miles north of Los Angeles (see map below).

Led by 2022-23 Co-Directors Cody Yoshida and Jared Yuge, Kyodo Taiko will make their 17th consecutive appearance at the Manzanar Pilgrimage this year. They are the first collegiate taiko (Japanese drum) group in North America, making their debut at the Opening Ceremony of the University of California, Los Angeles’ commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Japanese American Internment, which was held in February 1992 at UCLA’s famed Royce Hall.

Comprised entirely of UCLA students, Kyodo Taiko has performed at local K-12 schools, Nisei Week, the Tofu Festival and the Lotus Festival in Los Angeles, the Intercollegiate Taiko Invitational, during halftime at UCLA men’s basketball games, the First Annual USA Sumo Open, and the 2018 Community Art Days in Bishop, California, sponsored by the Inyo Council for the Arts, in addition to many other campus, community and private events.

The theme for this year’s Pilgrimage is “Our Legacy: Generational Struggles For Democracy.” Featured speakers will be Manjusha Kulkarni, Executive Director of the AAPI Equity Alliance and a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and Dr. Arthur A. Hansen, one of the leading scholars documenting and researching Manzanar and the Japanese American Incarceration, is the author of the new book, Manzanar Mosaic: Essays and Oral Histories on America’s First World War II Japanese American Concentration Camp.

Also speaking will be Brenda Ling, Superintendent, Manzanar National Historic Site, and James Matsuoka, son of the late Jim Matsuoka.

Cultural performances will begin at 11:30 AM, while the main portion of the Pilgrimage program begins at 12:00 PM.

In addition to the afternoon event, the Manzanar At Dusk program follows that same evening, from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM, at the Lone Pine High School gymnasium, located at 538 South Main Street (U.S. Highway 395), in Lone Pine, nine miles south of the Manzanar National Historic Site, across the street from McDonald’s (see map below).

Manzanar At Dusk is co-sponsored by the Nikkei Student Unions at California State University, Fullerton, California State University, Long Beach, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, San Diego.

The Manzanar Committee has also announced that a limited number of seats on the bus to the Pilgrimage from Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo are still available, but are going fast.

The bus will depart at 7:00 AM, arriving at the Pilgrimage at approximately 11:30 AM, and will also take participants to the Visitor Center at the Manzanar National Historic Site following the afternoon program. The bus should arrive back in Los Angeles at approximately 8:30 PM.

Reservations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. The non-refundable fare is $60.00 per seat. Complimentary fares are available for those who were incarcerated at any of the former American concentration camps or other confinement sites during World War II.

Anyone wishing to attend the Manzanar At Dusk program that evening should make other transportation arrangements.

To reserve seats on the bus, call (323) 662-5102, or go to https://manzanarcommittee.org/2023bus-0reservations.

Further details about the 54th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and the 2023 Manzanar At Dusk program will be announced at a later date.

Both the Manzanar Pilgrimage and the Manzanar At Dusk programs are free and are open to the public. For more information, call (323) 662-5102 or send e-mail to info@manzanarcommittee.org.

---

The Manzanar Committee, sponsor of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage and Manzanar At Dusk program, the youth education project, Katari: Keeping Japanese American Stories Alive, and the Sue Kunitomi Student Awards Program, 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. For more information, check out our web site at https://manzanarcommittee.org, call us at (323) 662-5102, or e-mail us at info@manzanarcommittee.org. You can also follow the Manzanar Committee on Facebook, on Twitter at @manzanarcomm, on Instagram at @manzanarcommittee, on Pinterest and on YouTube.

-30-

LEAD PHOTO: Kyodo Taiko performs at the 50th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, April 27, 2019. Photo by Gann Matsuda/Manzanar Committee.

Manzanar National Historic Site via Google Maps

Lone Pine High School via Google Maps

---

The Manzanar Committee’s Official web site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. You may copy, distribute and/or transmit any story 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 site are required. Photographs, graphic images, and other content not specified are subject to additional restrictions. Additional information is available at: Manzanar Committee Official web site – Licensing and Copyright Information.