Manzanar Committee Seeks Community Support for “Manzanar Remembered” Archival Project

LOS ANGELES — The Manzanar Committee seeks community support for its archival history project, “Manzanar Remembered: An Online Archive of Pilgrimages and the Endeavor to Establish the Manzanar National Historic Site.”

The project seeks to preserve and digitize material related to the beginnings of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimages, and efforts to create the Manzanar National Historic Site.

Archival material collected will be available to the public via partner organization Densho, and accessible via the Manzanar Committee web site.

The Manzanar Committee is calling on community members to provide hard copies of photos, brochures, video, etc. along with news clippings from the Rafu Shimpo, and other Japanese American news outlets.

The project is funded, in part, by a Japanese American Confinement Site grant.

“There are so many untold stories, actually hidden history, that are so important,” Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey said. “Our organization has always been a grass-roots, not-for-profit, relying solely on our community to remember and build Manzanar. Today, we can only rely on our community to help us tell our story and document the real history of our pilgrimages and the rebuilding of Manzanar into a site of conscience. That is why we are asking for any memorabilia such as leaflets programs, buttons, etc.”

Documenting the history of Manzanar Pilgrimages and the decades-long effort to create the Manzanar National Historic Site is important precisely because Manzanar was the site of the very first community-organized camp pilgrimage in 1969. Manzanar became the first confinement site to have an official historic marker erected in 1973, and was the first confinement site to become a unit of the National Park Service as the Manzanar National Historic Site in 1992. These efforts, along with the enormous number of films/videos, memoirs, exhibitions, novels, and other interpretive and creative works that focus on it, have greatly influenced the remembrance of the incarceration, in general, as well as at other sites, as evidenced by the myriad camp pilgrimages, various types of site commemoration, and National Park Service units that have followed.

The Manzanar Committee will be collecting materials throughout the year.

For more information, contact the Manzanar Committee at (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.

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LEAD PHOTO: Manzanar Pilgrimage and Manzanar Committee co-founder Sue Kunitomi Embrey (center right; hands clasped) is shown here at the first organized Manzanar Pilgrimage, December 27, 1969. Photo from the Evan Phillips Collection/National Park Service Photo.

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