Manzanar Committee Co-Sponsors NPCA National Day of Action

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 14, 2025

The Manzanar Committee is co-sponsoring the National Park Conservation Association’s (NPCA) #ProtectEveryPark Day of Action on Saturday, August 23, 2025. This nationwide event will take place at numerous National Park Service (NPS) locations to call attention to the crippling DOGE staffing and budget cuts and the QR codes recently installed at the parks by the Trump administration in an attempt to erase history. 

What: #ProtectEveryPark National Day of Action

When: Saturday, August 23, 2025 

Where : 

• Japanese American National Museum – Democracy Plaza (100 N Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012) 10:00-11:30 AM 
• Manzanar National Historic Site – near the Cemetery / Ireito (5001 Highway 395, Independence, CA 93526), 2:00-4:00 PM 

To the Manzanar Committee, the Trump administration’s actions at the parks are an existential threat to National Historic Sites (NHS), including Manzanar NHS, Amache NHS, Minidoka NHS, Amache NHS, Honouliuli NHS, and other civil rights sites such as Stonewall NHS, Trail of Tears NHS, and Harriet Tubman NHS. These sites are essential to remembering and reconciling our dark history in America and now they are at risk if the Trump administration continues along this path. We cannot afford our history to be erased.

In addition, the Trump regime has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to terrorize and disappear undocumented immigrants, legal residents, and citizens in our communities in a way that we have not witnessed since our families were forcibly removed and incarcerated into concentration camps during World War II. As Nikkei, we remember that no organization outside of the Quakers stood with us when the government came after our community. The Manzanar Committee strongly supports due process for all people and demands that ICE stop abducting people like the Gestapo. We’ve seen this before and will not stay silent. We believe it is time to stand up and take action.

Manzanar Co-Chair Bruce Embrey stated, “The Trump administration’s attack on the Smithsonian and the national parks is an escalation of their attacks on our civil rights and communities of color. It is one more step in the campaign to reshape people’s understanding of the history of our country by stripping out the truth about how our nation was formed. Simply put, it is an effort to gut work by the National Park Service from telling the story of the forced removal of indigenous people, chattel slavery, Jim Crow and the unconstitutional incarceration of more than 125,000 persons of Japanese ancestry during WWII. We will not stand for this erasure.”

The Manzanar Committee will be sponsoring events at two sites for the NPCA National Day of Action: 

• Co-Chair Bruce Embrey and Manzanar camp survivor Pat Sakamoto will be traveling up to the Manzanar National Historic Site for a program at the Free Speech area on August 23th from 2:00-4:00 PM. We expect to be joined by former Manzanar Superintendent Bernadette Johnson and local indigenous leaders in the area who are concerned about the erosion of democracy in our country. 
• In Los Angeles, Manzanar Committee will be joining other Nikkei civil rights groups in a press conference and rally at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) Plaza in Little Tokyo on August 23 from 10:00 to 11:30 AM. Sponsors for the event are National Park Conservation Association, Go for Broke, JANM, JACL, Little Tokyo Historical Society, Little Tokyo Service Center, Manzanar Committee, NCRR, Nikkei Progressives, and Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition. 

For more information on these events, please contact Glen Kitayama, gkitayama@manzanarcommittee.org.

###