Official Web site of the Los Angeles-based Manzanar Committee, sponsor of the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since 1969.
by Ashley Honma I wish I could say that I could relate, but honestly, that would not have been the truth. I knew about the internment camps. I knew about Executive Order 9066. I knew about the hate, the scorn, and the racism. I also knew about the injustice, the cruelty, and the wrongdoing. Yet,... Continue Reading →
Born in Sierra Madre, California in April 1923, Yosh Kuromiya and his family moved to Monrovia, where he attended grammar school, junior high and high school. He was attending Pasadena Junior College as an art major when his family was forced out of their homes and imprisoned, like other Americans of Japanese ancestry, during World... Continue Reading →
The following is the text of the keynote address delivered at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 30, 2011, by Mako Nakagawa. Good afternoon. I am very pleased to be able to join you on this wonderful occasion. We stand here today on sacred ground. If we listen, we can hear the cries of... Continue Reading →
The following are remarks by Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, the recipient of the Manzanar Committee’s 2011 Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award, which was presented at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 30, 2011. Herzig-Yoshinaga could not attend, so she provided the following remarks for publication here. For more information on Herzig-Yoshinaga and this award, click on:... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
by James To This past Saturday, I welcomed forty students and their teachers from Thomas Starr King Middle School in Los Angeles to the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. Seventy years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which established an exclusion zone and allowed the forced evacuation and incarceration of over 120,000 Americans... Continue Reading →
Editor’s Note: The following is a personal reflection by Jason Honeycutt, who visited the Manzanar National Historic Site in May, 2010. CANOGA PARK, CA — On the almost five-hour drive north on US Highway 395 to Mammoth Mountain, I had driven by it over twenty times, always curious what it was. It looked like a... Continue Reading →
by Bruce Embrey The paper, Concentration Camps, Not Relocation Centers, written by Sue Kunitomi Embrey, grew out of a panel discussion held at California State University, Fullerton, on March 25, 1976. It represents one of the earliest efforts of the Manzanar Committee to educate the broader public about the incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese... Continue Reading →
Another voice in the debate on the use of euphemistic terms to describe the Japanese American Internment experience is that of playwright Soji Kashiwagi, Executive Producer of the Grateful Crane Ensemble. Responding to Rafu Shimpo columnist George Yoshinaga, who has, for many years, argued that concentration camp is not an appropriate term to describe the... Continue Reading →
Manzanar Committee 