The following is a letter written by Craig Ishii, Executive Director of Kizuna, a Los Angeles-based community organization that works to create an empowering culture and environment, to engage and advocate for the community by igniting the passion of young Japanese Americans, and to build a collective identity through multi-generational and multi-ethnic collaborations. December 13,... Continue Reading →
Proposed Solar Ranch Near Manzanar: Another Threat To Japanese American Historic Sites
by Bruce Embrey LOS ANGELES — After decades of annual Pilgrimages, lobbying and finally, an act of Congress, the Manzanar National Historic Site was created in 1992. The first of ten War Relocation Authority concentration camps built to incarcerate more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, Manzanar became the first site of conscience that tells... Continue Reading →
Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey Calls On LADWP To Find Another Location For Solar Farm
On November 16, 2013, a meeting was held at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) in Downtown Los Angeles where LADWP officials detailed their plans for the proposed Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch. This project would be a 1,200-acre solar energy generating station built in close proximity to the... Continue Reading →
NBC4 In Los Angeles Reports On Proposed LADWP Solar Ranch Near Manzanar
LOS ANGELES — During KNBC-TV 4’s NBC4 News at 5 PM broadcast on November 15, correspondent Gordon Tokumatsu reported on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s (LADWP) proposal to build the Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch in close proximity to the Manzanar National Historic Site. Manzanar Committee Co-Chair Bruce Embrey, and his uncle,... Continue Reading →
Archeology Is Revealing History At Manzanar, Kooskia
Laura Ng has worked on archeology projects at Manzanar National Historic Site, and at the site of the Kooskia internment camp in Idaho. In this piece, she provides some insight into the role that archeology has played, and will continue to play, in the evolving interpretation of the history of the Japanese American confinement sites... Continue Reading →
Former Manzanar Incarceree Hank Umemoto Urges LADWP Board To Halt Plans For Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch
Hank Umemoto, a former Manzanar incarceree, and author of Manzanar To Mount Whitney: The Life and Times of a Lost Hiker, wrote the following letter to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, regarding their proposed Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch, which would be built east of the... Continue Reading →
Playwright and Activist Hiroshi Kashiwagi Decries “Another Fence At Tule Lake”
The following letter to the editor by playwright/poet and former Tule Lake incarceree Hiroshi Kashiwagi was submitted to the Herald and News, the daily newspaper in Klamath Falls, California, not far from the site of the former Tule Lake Segregation Center, in response to their story on the controversy about the proposed perimeter fence that... Continue Reading →
A Look Inside The National Park Service’s General Management Plan Scoping Process For Tule Lake
by James To On July 24, I attended a public meeting in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, sponsored by the National Park Service, to provide feedback on the development of the Tule Lake Unit of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. At the meeting, NPS staff updated the community on the status... Continue Reading →
Did You Know There Was Once An Airport At Manzanar?
by Fred Bradford Years ago, I would drive to Lone Pine on the Thursday before the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, which is always held on the last Saturday of April. The extra day would allow me to drive around the area and sight see. I rarely get that chance if I drive up on Friday. By... Continue Reading →
