JACL RECEIVES NATIONAL PARK SERVICES GRANT

Washington, D.C. --  The National Park Service (NPS) has announced the grant award recipients for the Fiscal Year 2010 Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program.  NPS has awarded 23 grants totaling $2.9 million to help preserve and interpret historic locations where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.

Jon Jarvis, Director of NPS, stated:  "The Japanese American internment experience is an important chapter in American History. The National Park Service is honored to be part of this shared effort to preserve these sites, which are a tragic reminder of a shameful episode in our past, and a compelling lesson on the fragility of our constitutional rights."

The NPS grants range from $17,295 to re-establish the historic Honor Roll at the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome County, ID (which commemorates Japanese American servicemen from that camp) to $832,879 to build the interior of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center in Park County, Wyoming.

The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) has been awarded a grant of $151,790 for a program called "Passing the Legacy Down: Youth Interpretations of Confinement Sites in the Western United States" which will include the Manzanar Relocation Center, Inyo County, CA, Tule Lake Relocation Center (Tule Lake Segregation Center), Modoc County, CA, Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston), La Paz County, AZ, Minidoka Relocation Center, Jerome County, ID.

JACL’s “Passing the Legacy Down” program is based on and will include JACL Pacific Southwest District’s Bridging Communities Program. The Bridging Communities program was established to build connectivity between the Muslim American and Japanese American community; 2011 will mark the third year of our program. Our District will coordinate this educational program nationally, connecting Japanese American youth to other communities of color while weaving through the story of JA incarceration.

The Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program was established in 2006 by Congress to preserve and interpret the places where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.  The law authorizes up to $38 million in grants for the life of the program to identify, research, evaluate, interpret, protect, restore, repair, and acquire historic confinement sites.  The program seeks to teach and inspire present and future generations about the injustice of the Japanese American confinement and demonstrate the nation's commitment since then to equal justice under the law.

Congress appropriated $3 million in the current fiscal year for grants which were awarded on a competitive process, matching $2 in federal money for every $1 in non-federal funds and "in-kind" contributions raised by groups working to preserve the sites and their histories.  Congress appropriated $1 million for fiscal year 2009, the first year of the grants.

Locations eligible for the grants include the ten War Relocation Authority camps that were set up in 1942 in seven states:  Gila River and Poston, AZ; Amache, CO; Heart Mountain, WY; Jerome and Rohwer, AR; Manzanar and Tule Lake, CA; Minidoka, ID; and Topaz, UT.  There are also 40 other locations in 16 states, including civilian and military-run assembly, relocation, and isolation centers.

National Executive Director of the JACL, Floyd Mori, who was instrumental along with Gerald Yamada, in getting the bill introduced by then Congressman Bill Thomas and passed by Congress which established the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, stated:  "The JACL is grateful to the NPS and to Congress for this grant which will help us to continue to tell the Japanese American story in order to ensure that no other people will have to endure the horrific experiences which Japanese Americans did during World War II.  We appreciate the efforts of Craig Ishii, the JACL Pacific Southwest Regional Director, for his work in the grant application process necessary to secure this funding."

Larry Oda, National JACL President, added:  "These grants will allow the JACL and other organizations to tell the important story of the Japanese American internment experience. We thank those involved in awarding this grant to the JACL."

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Bridging Communities Program 2010 Comes to a Close

The second annual Bridging Communities Program came to a close on May 8 with a lively concluding session at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) office in Anaheim. Bridging Communities is a program coordinated by JACL, NCRR, and CAIR for Japanese American and Muslim American high school students involving a series of sessions about identity, culture, religion, history, community, and activism and includes a day trip to Manzanar Pilgrimage and field trips to Day of Remembrance, a mosque in Anaheim, and Higashi Temple in Little Tokyo.

Students began the program by discussing the concept of identity and the impacts of stereotyping during the first session, and then discussed particular aspects of identity, namely culture and religion, during the second session. The participants then attended Manzanar Pilgrimage for the third session. The fourth session was packed with interactive workshops where students learned about topics ranging from Japanese American and Muslim American history to the basic principles of direct action organizing.

During the fifth and last session, when students had an opportunity to evaluate the program, many students expressed that they especially enjoyed the trip to Manzanar, and were not only able to learn from the trip, but also make close friends. Wrote one Japanese American student about the Manzanar trip, “I felt like I was learning and getting inspired. It made me think of the internees, and how I want to make a difference and make sure it never happens again with anyone.” One Muslim American student, Sabrina Dahak, in expressing her thoughts about the trip, said, “Going to Manzanar, I honestly felt like if there were ever Muslim internment camps, the Japanese American community would have our backs and get us out of there.” Many other students expressed hope that the program would continue and interest in helping with the program next year.

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Bridging Communities Program Participants to Attend 41^st Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage

On Saturday, April 24, twenty-seven of the participants of this year’s Bridging Communities Program will be attending the 41^st annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. Bridging Communities is a program that brings together Japanese American and Muslim American high school students in a series of interactive workshops about identity, culture, religion, community, history, and activism. The Pilgrimage is the third session of this year’s program. In the first session, participants discussed self-identity and the impacts of stereotyping and then attended Day of Remembrance. In the second session, participants participated in various workshops about culture, religion, and community empowerment at the Islamic Institute of Orange County.

Despite having to leave for Manzanar at six in the morning, the participants are very excited about the upcoming trip. As the program has progressed, many of the participants have become closer friends, and are looking forward to spending more time with each other during the 18-hour trip. The participants will be touring the Manzanar Interpretive Center, attending the scheduled program at the Monument Site, and attending the Manzanar After Dusk Program. They will also be watching Pilgrimage and Stand Up For Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story on the bus ride to Manzanar.

Last year’s participants found the trip to be a great bonding experience. For most students, it was their first time attending the Pilgrimage. One parent of a Japanese American participant last year said that her daughter was able to speak with her grandmother about her internment camp experience after attending the Pilgrimage. For other students, it was their first time even learning about the Japanese American internment experience.

This year’s participants are looking forward to learning a lot from the pilgrimage. In the words of Shehzaib Rahim, one of this year’s participants, “I hope I learn a lot about tolerance and understanding from my trip to Manzanar because I know that those are two qualities that I can't attain from reading a book or taking a high school class on, they only come from life experiences and an open mind. I also hope to establish a more productive ideal on how to grasp historical events and be more appreciative for the things I have in my life that people before me were not so fortunate to have.”

The Bridging Communities Program is a joint effort by JACL, NCRR, and CAIR, and recognizes the similarities between Japanese American internment and the hostilities and civil rights infringements that Muslim communities have faced after 9/11 and the start of the Iraq War. The Manzanar Pilgrimage is a chance for the students in this program to see an internment camp for themselves and to better understand the need for solidarity between the two communities.

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JACL, NCRR and CAIR Host Civil Rights Dialogue with Japanese and Muslim American Students Through the Bridging Communities Program

On February 20, 2010, the JACL Pacific Southwest District, Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress and the Council on American-Islamic Relations hosted the first session of the second annual Bridging Communities Program. This years program, gathering 25 Japanese American and Muslim American high school students, will create awareness and action for solidarity between our two communities.

The goal of the Bridging Communities Program is to create awareness, dialogue and ultimately activism from Japanese American and Muslim American youth through a series of interactive sessions including topics such as: identity, culture, religion, civil rights, community history, advocacy, and community service.

During this first session, students explored the concept of identity through a series of fun and interactive workshops that addressed both self-identity and the impacts of stereotyping. Students then headed to the 2010 Day of Remembrance at the Japanese American National Museum where they learned about the landmark civil rights case Korematsu v. United States, a lawsuit that overturned Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to obey the exclusion orders given to Japanese Americans during World War II.

The Bridging Communities program was established as a proactive response from JACL, NCRR and CAIR to a number of incidents of hate and intolerance incurred by the Muslim American community in the long aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Recognizing the similarities that Japanese Americans faced in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor ultimately resulting in Japanese American incarceration, Bridging Communities was meant to build solidarity and partnership between these two communities.

“The Bridging Communities program offers an opportunity for our high school students to look at their own personal perceptions of identity and stereotypes and connect those to significant civil right issues that have affected Americans. In addition, our program also looks at ways in which communities have approached infringements of the past, like the Redress and Reparations movement in the Japanese American community,” explained CAIR Civil Rights Manager Affad Shaikh. Future Bridging Communities sessions will build upon the workshops and Day of Remembrance program to garner a sense of commitment to community from program participants.

Bridging Communities Participants will be constructing blogs about their experience at the first Bridging Communities Session and Day of Remembrance. All of the student blogs will be linked on http://bridgingcommunities2010.wordpress.com. For more information on the Bridging Communities Program visit www.jaclpsw.org, or contact Dian Sohn at 213-626-4471, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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More about Bridging Communities

Registration for 2010 is closed.

Organized by:

JACL Pacific Southwest District: The Japanese American Citizens League is a national organization whose ongoing mission is to secure and maintain the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry. The leaders and members of the JACL also work to promote cultural, educational and social values and preserve the heritage and legacy of the Japanese American community.

Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress: NCRR's drive is to empower the grassroots community, to help give voice to Japanese Americans who felt that they had nothing to say or that what they did have to say was not important.
NCRR helped many of them to speak out at the 1981 hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). We held countless forums to educate and activate the community to participate in the Redress Movement. In 1987, we organized a lobbying delegation of over 120 Nikkei to Washington D.C. Click here to read more

Council on American-Islamic Relations: CAIR's vision is to be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding. CAIR's mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. Click here to read more

This program is funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program (CCLPEP) and by the Japanese American Community Services (JACS) Fund.