Weekly Digest
November 23, 2021

JACL Operating Status

JACL offices will be closed Thursday, November 25, and Friday, November 26 in observance of Thanksgiving. 

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

JACL is Hiring for a New Fellow!

JACL is now hiring for the Norman Y. Mineta Fellowship to start in January 2022! The fellowships provide the opportunity to work on advocacy at a national level through the National JACL office based in Washington, D.C. As a fellow, you will become a key component of the D.C. team. In this position you will be working with JACL staff, other fellows, and the executive director, collectively working to mobilize and inform local chapters. To learn more about the position and apply please click here!

Help the Library of Congress Identify Photographs of Japanese Americans
Incarcerated During WWII

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."

Friends of Minidoka Letter to California Public Utilities Commission to Include Language to Protect Former Incarceration Sites

The Friends of Minidoka has drafted a public comment letter to send to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to include language in its Environmental and Social Justice Action Plan to help protect all camps and incarceration sites from CPUC actions. 

See: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/newsroom/environmental-and-social-justice-action-plan

We are asking JACSC member groups, and JA groups in California, and nationwide to sign onto this letter.  Please feel free to circulate with groups widely, particularly in California.   

With support from Barbara Takei, Minidoka partners have drafted this letter to respond to the imminent threat to Minidoka NHS posed by the Lava Ridge wind project. Attached is some background information. Please note that if adopted, the recommendations in the letter would help protect all camps and incarceration sites from the threats of renewable energy projects and transmission. We apologize for the short notice on this.   

The public comment period closes on Wednesday, November 24.   

If you have any questions about the letter, please contact Dan Sakura at dan@sakuraconservationstrategies.com.  Dan is an advisor to the Friends of Minidoka and can be reached at 202-309-1497. 

2022 JACL NEH "Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis: The Japanese American Experience" Applications Now Open!

2022 NEH Landmarks Programs from JANM and Heart Mountain!

JACL was not the only Japanese American organization to receive an NEH Landmarks Grant for 2022! Our friends at Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the Japanese American National Museum are also hosting their own programs! Please look through below and share/apply to their programs as well!

The workshops, entitled “Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and the Japanese American Incarceration,” will take place June 19-24 and July 24-29 at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and other sites around Cody and Powell, Wyoming. The NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture grant program, which provided funding for these workshops, was developed to teach educators, using place-based pedagogy, about key aspects of American history.

Participating K-12 educators will hear from a faculty of international and local experts about the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II. The workshops will place these events in the larger context of Wyoming history, and will include segments on Native American history related to Heart Mountain and the stories of the homesteaders that moved onto the project after the camp was closed.

Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations will examine history through the neighborhood of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California. This week-long workshop will be offered twice: July 17-22 and July 24-29, 2022.

During the course of the workshop, participants will be joined by scholars, educators, curators, and community historians to learn about this unique place and how it has evolved through history. This program will examine how Little Tokyo has been impacted by events and issues such as restrictive covenants, eminent domain, the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, the civil rights movement, and gentrification. With a focus on Japanese American history, we will consider the past’s relevance to present day issues of identity and preservation.

Participants will explore teaching through primary sources, including the collection of the Japanese American National Museum. Additionally, participants will learn about multiple rich resources available to support their teaching of this history and will create a lesson plan for classroom use.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

JACL Applauds Signing of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

November 15, 2021

[Yesterday], President Biden signed the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). This monumental act will provide many of the resources needed to improve marginalized communities such as expedient broadband access to ensure that Americans are provided with reliable high-speed internet...

The JACL hopes that the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will soon be followed by the passage of the Build Back Better Plan and more legislation that uplifts our nation. The Build Back Better plan includes key funding for social infrastructure that many members of marginalized communities will benefit from such as expanded healthcare coverage and paid leave benefits. We cannot complete a full recovery if we do not make investments in our social infrastructure to match our investment in physical infrastructure.

2022 Shinzen Nikkei Youth Goodwill Program

2022 Minoru Yasui Legacy Project Scholarships

The 2022 Minoru Yasui Student Contest is now accepting applications!

The submission deadline is March 1, 2022.

This year, there will be a $1000 grand prize for the Senior Division and a $500 grand prize for the Junior Division. For the full criteria, requirements, resources, and awards, please visit the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project’s Student Contest website

Updated Link: USC Seeking Nisei students whose educations were disrupted by WWII 

The following request is from Richard Watanabe, Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC, USC Alumnus '86, '88, '95

The University of Southern California has decided to recognize Nisei students whose educations were disrupted by WWII and the racist policies of then-University President Rufus B. von KleinSmid by bestowing honorary degrees to them or their descendants.  Honorary degrees were conferred on living Nisei from that period, but those who had already passed were not honored.  This new decree bestows degrees on all affected Nisei, deceased or living.  An effort is underway to identify those individuals or their survivors so they can be properly recognized.  Above is a 1942 yearbook photo of some members of the USC Trojan Nisei Club along with their names on the right (Courtesy of the Rafu Shimpo). USC is trying to identify as many of the affected Nisei as possible, so they may receive their honorary degrees. If anyone has information on impacted individuals or their families, you can visit the website below to submit information.

Berkeley Oral History Project Seeking Project Participants

UC Berkeley's Oral History Project is seeking Nikkei who have had parents/grandparents/great grandparents who have been incarcerated in Manzanar and Topaz concentration camps.  How do people heal? Through new oral history interviews, this project will document and disseminate the ways in which intergenerational trauma and healing occurred after the U.S. government's incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. These interviews will examine and compare how private memory, creative expression, place, and public interpretation intersect at two sites of incarceration: Manzanar in California and Topaz in Utah. To nominate yourself or someone else for this project please complete the Nomination Form. 

JACL Anti-Hate and Hate Crime Resources

For resources, toolkits, articles, and more about anti-hate programs and hate crimes, you can visit our page on JACL.org by clicking the link below.

H.R. 40 Updates and Join in Support

Last Wednesday, April 14, the House Judiciary Committee voted for the first time in the bill's 30 year history to advance H.R. 40 to the House floor for a full vote! This is a monumental step in bill's life and a start towards righting another wrong in our nation's history. 

JACL Executive Director, David Inoue, discusses JACL’s support of H.R. 40. H.R. 40 would create a commission to examine the institution of slavery, its legacy, and make recommendations to Congress for reparations, beginning a process of repairing and restoring after centuries of enslavement. Click the image above to watch the full video statement. 

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