This Spring, Baseball Returns to Manzanar

The Manzanar Baseball Project will stage two games at the Manzanar National Historic Site.

Here's an incredible project that could use your eyes and dollars -- a unique community event that combines sports, history, memory and social justice. This spring, The Manzanar Baseball Project will stage two baseball games on a newly restored field at the Manzanar National Historic Site in the Mojave Desert.

Manzanar was the first of ten detention camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were unjustly imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II. Overall, it was the largest mass incarceration in American history with 120,000 people being imprisoned between 1942 and 1945.

For many incarcerated Japanese Americans during this time, resilience meant creating a sense of "home" in any way possible, including playing sports. And in the 1940s, baseball was the most popular sport in the country -- including and especially in the camps, where dozens of leagues were formed with hundreds of players.

Skeleton identified as lost hiker from Manzanar

Giichi Matsumura died during a fishing trip in 1945 when he got caught in a snowstorm.



A skeleton found by hikers last fall near California's second-highest peak has been identified as a Japanese American artist who had left the incarceration camp at Manzanar to paint in the mountains during the last days of World War II.

Giichi Matsumura was on a hiking trip on July 29, 1945 when he stopped to paint a watercolor, intending to catch up later with his group. He got caught in a freak summer snowstorm and died. His remains were later recovered and buried in the mountains, but the remote gravesite was lost to time.

Last October, hikers stumbled across an intact human skeleton while on their way to the top of Mount Williamson. Authorities used DNA to determine that the skeleton was indeed the remains of Matsumura.

More here: Skeleton found by Sierra hikers is that of Manzanar internee

Because History Is In Danger of Repeating Itself

"Is it starting to sink in?"



There are clear, frightening parallels between the contemporary scapegoating of Muslims in America and the persecution of Japanese Americans during World War II. This is how it begins. Anyone who can't recognize this is either willfully ignorant or simply does not care. Bobby Hundreds sees the parallels.

Bobby Hundreds, aka Bobby Kim, founder of the apparel company The Hundreds created this limited edition shirt design earlier this year for "What A Time To Be Alive," an social issues-oriented group show at Slow Culture. With fresh talk of a Muslim registry and the "precedent" of Japanese American internment, Bobby recently re-shared the shirt via Instagram and asked, "Is it starting to sink in?"

"You have altered the American Story today by becoming part of it. And we are all the better for it."

New U.S. citizens welcomed in a naturalization ceremony at Manzanar National Historic Site.


Photo Credit: USCIS
Last week, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalized fourteen new U.S. citizens during a ceremony held at the Manzanar National Historic Site, the former site of one of ten camps used by the government to detain over 110,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

USCIS chose the location in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Manzanar National Historic Site, located six miles south of Independence, California, now stands to preserve and interpret the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the Unted States. The ceremony, held on May 25, also celebrated the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, which oversees the site.

Honorable Paul M. Igasaki, Chair and Chief Judge of the Administrative Review Board at the U.S. Department of Labor -- whose own family members were incarcerated during World War II -- served as the ceremony's keynote speaker. Here is a transcript of his remarks:

Manzanar Committee announces Student Awards Program

K-12 students are invited to submit creative works about social justice.



The Manzanar Committee is dedicated to educating and raising public awareness about the incarceration and violation of civil rights of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II and to the continuing struggle of all peoples when Constitutional rights are in danger.

The Committee recently announced the first annual Manzanar Committee Student Awards Program, a creative works program that will recognize students who demonstrate an understanding of his/her guiding principles of social justice and constitutional rights in today's society.

This year's theme is Kodomo No Tame Ni: For The Sake of the Children - Liberty and Justice For All. K-12 students are invited to submit essays, short stories, poetry, works of art, including drawings, collages, posters, and works involving technology, including animation, podcasts, movies or videos.

Winning entries will be eligible for prizes up to $100, and their works may be presented at the 47th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage on April 30, 2016, and on the Manzanar Committee's website and/or blog.

Stop plans to build a solar ranch adjacent to Manzanar

Sign the petition to halt LADWP's proposal for a 1,200-acre solar energy facility



Calling your attention to something going down at Manzanar... Last month, the Manzanar Committee launched an online petition drive and community letter-writing campaign calling on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to halt its efforts to build a proposed industrial solar energy generation station in California's Owens Valley, adjacent to the Manzanar National Historic Site.

As you know, Manzanar was one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated after being forcibly removed from the West Coast during World War II. Today, the Manzanar National Historic Site stands to preserve and interpret the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States.

But the LADWP has grand plans to build Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch, a 200-megawatt solar energy generating facility that would consist of solar photovoltaic panel modules and associated infrastructure. The approximately 1,200-acre project site would be located on City of Los Angeles-owned property east of the Owens River, but in a direct line of sight with the Manzanar Historic Site, which lies immediately to the west.

The Manzanar Committee says LADWP's proposed facility will create an environment that is highly detrimental and disrespectful to the history and culture of the Owens Valley and the Manzanar National Historic Site.