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Weekly Digest
December 7, 2021 |
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JACL's physical offices remain officially closed. Staff continue to do the work of the organization remotely with some visits to the physical office. Please direct all phone calls to our Washington, D.C. Office at (202) 223-1240 and we will get back to you as quickly as possible. Otherwise, we will all be available via email. All staff emails can be found HERE. Stay safe everyone and we hope to see you all in person again soon. - JACL National Staff |
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JACL Reflects on the 80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack | | |
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December 7, 2021 Today the JACL reflects on the 80th anniversary of the devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japanese forces. The attack resulted in the deaths of over 2,400 Americans stationed in Hawaii. This event is especially painful to the Japanese American community because the attack led to the direct questioning of loyalty and incarceration without trial of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry. Those that were not incarcerated continued to face hate and discrimination from their fellow Americans who saw them as indistinguishable from the faces of the enemy. |
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2022 JACL National Scholarship Applications Now Open! |
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The JACL has been helping students achieve their educational dreams with the National Scholarship and Awards Program since 1946. The program currently offers over 30 awards, with an annual total of over $70,000 in scholarships to qualified students nationwide. The National Scholarship and Awards Program offers scholarships to students who are entering freshman, undergraduate, graduate, law, in the creative & performing arts, and those with financial need. All scholarships are one-time awards. |
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Minidoka Follow-Up Community Call |
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Thursday, December 16, 2021 at 5pm PT/8pm ET Join Japanese American community members and advocacy organizations for an update on the latest on what is happening with Minidoka and the Lava Ridge Wind Farm Project. The call is open to all with RSVP. |
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Updates on the Wakasa Memorial Site at Topaz |
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Eleven Japanese American survivors and descendants from California traveled to Utah on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 to witness the National Park Service begin its fieldwork at the Topaz concentration camp where an issei-built monument to James Wakasa, a 63-year-old issei who was murdered inside the fence in 1943, was dug up earlier this year by the Topaz Museum. The members of the Wakasa Memorial Committee held ceremonies on both days -- at the museum, where the memorial stone is now located, and at the murder site, next to the barbed wire fence. Public radio KUER of Salt Lake City covered the story. The NCWNP is among the sixteen members of the Wakasa Memorial Committee's Advisory Council. JACLers Nancy Ukai, Satsuki Ina, Barbara Takei, and Karen Korematsu are among the members of the committee and advisory council. |
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Minidoka WWII Honor Roll Replica Update Project 2022 |
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Calling all Minidoka WWII Veterans, their families, and friends! The National Park Service is updating the reconstructed Honor Roll located at the front entrance of Minidoka National Historic Site. If you are a WWII veteran who was unjustly incarcerated at Minidoka, or if you are a friend or relative of such a veteran, we would like to hear from you! Veterans include those who served in the 100th /442nd Regimental Combat Team, Military Intelligence Service, Women’s Army Corps, Army Nurse Corps, and Cadet Nurse Corps. From December 2021 to January 31, 2022, we are accepting applications to add Minidoka WWII veterans onto the Honor Roll if their names have not yet been listed. We are also accepting applications to correct misspellings or make changes to an existing name. Project details, including the current names on the replica Honor Roll, can be found on the Minidoka Honor Roll project webpage. |
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Florin Sacramento Valley JACL Silent Auction and 86th Anniversary Gala |
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Our 86th Anniversary Gala Please make plans to join us Saturday, December 11 at 6:00PM
This feel-great opportunity is a free and inclusive event. We hope you will share with all who would be interested in learning about and/or supporting Florin JACL-Sacramento Valley! |
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Give Back with JACL! Gift a membership, donate, or share your story! |
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2022 JACL NEH "Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis: The Japanese American Experience" Applications Now Open! |
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| | Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis: The Japanese American Experience JACL and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) are inviting seventy-two educators to explore the historical significance and enduring legacy of the World War II Japanese American incarceration experience and the reparations movement. While past participants are primarily social studies and humanities teachers at the K-12 levels, all are invited to apply. This NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop will be offered twice: June 19-24 and July 10-15, 2022. Participants will be staying in the historic Little Tokyo neighborhood in Los Angeles with the majority of programming being at our host institution, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), with day trips to Santa Anita Park (a WWII temporary “assembly center”) and Manzanar National Historic Site (one of the ten permanent WWII “internment” camps). This will be one of the last times we are able to host a workshop with living camp survivors as the WWII generation passes the torch to future ones. | | |
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Check out NEH Programs from our partners below! |
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A Stain on American Jurisprudence: What "Korematsu vs. United States" Means for Us Today |
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The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority." - Chief Justice John Roberts on Korematsu v. United States, 2018. Join us virtually to hear from two Asian American luminaries: Dale Minami, lead attorney on the legal team that overturned the conviction of Fred Korematsu, and Dr. Karen Korematsu, Founder and Executive Director of the Korematsu Institute, a non-profit dedicated to advancing racial equity, social justice and human rights for all. Lane Nishikawa, actor, and independent filmmaker will facilitate a discussion as we hear behind-the-scenes stories from the case and the implications and relevance of Korematsu in our world today. See biographies for the panelists here. This program is co-sponsored with the San Diego Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the oldest and largest Asian American civil rights organization in the United States. Their mission is to safeguard the civil rights of Asian Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry and to promote and preserve the heritage and legacy of Japanese Americans. |
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Help the Library of Congress Identify Photographs of Japanese Americans
Incarcerated During WWII |
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From The Library of Congress - "Previously unidentified, we were able to add her name, Shizuko Ina, and information about her incarceration experience to the public record. A blog post interview with her daughter, Satsuki Ina, describes the experience. We have now finished scanning and cataloging the remaining War Relocation Authority photographs in our collections. Many of the people depicted in the WRA images are unidentified. The Prints & Photographs Division is now digitally sharing 30 WRA photographs through an album in the Library of Congress Flickr Project. Survivors and descendants of the incarceration during World War II are encouraged to provide names of unidentified persons and deeper context for the history behind the photos. You can see more photographs of the forced removal of Japanese Americans by searching in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. All are welcome to comment on the photographs posted in the Flickr album, and the information you provide there may be added to the catalog records for the images in the online catalog. Identifications and comments for additional WRA photographs can be submitted to Library of Congress Ask A Librarian." |
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2022 Minoru Yasui Legacy Project Scholarships |
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Updated Link: USC Seeking Nisei students whose educations were disrupted by WWII |
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