DENVER — A proposal to create a national historic site at a former World War II Japanese American concentration camp in rural Colorado has passed the U.S. Senate after Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee dropped his objections to adding more land to the federal government’s portfolio — in this case less than a square mile. […]
Paul Bannai, first Japanese American to serve in California State Legislature, dies at 99
October 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Former California State Assemblyman Paul Takeo Bannai, the first Japanese American elected to serve in the California State Legislature, peacefully passed away in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sept. 14, 2019. He was 99. Bannai was born on July 4, 1920, 180 miles northeast of Denver, in Delta, Colo. He grew up in other towns in […]
Japanese American former incarceree protests Trump on travel ban
June 21, 2018 by Leave a Comment
NEW YORK — A Japanese American born in an American concentration camp during World War II is pushing back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions that target people from certain Muslim-majority nations. “It’s easy to issue a presidential order, but it would take many, many years to repeal it,†said Takeshi Furumoto, speaking at […]
Community icon Jimi Yamaichi dies at 95
May 24, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Jimi Yamaichi — carpenter, World War II draft resister, Tule Lake Committee member, Japanese American Museum of San Jose co-founder and community leader — passed away at his San Jose home on May 12. He was 95. “Jimi Yamaichi is an icon of the Japanese American community … and he has touched the lives of […]
Hope amid hardship
January 1, 2018 by Leave a Comment
THE HOPE OF ANOTHER SPRING: TAKUICHI FUJII, ARTIST AND WARTIME WITNESS By Barbara Johns (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017, 352 pp., $39.95, hardback) This altogether beautiful book by noted Seattle-based art historian and curator Barbara Johns strikingly testifies to the oft-stated judgment that a picture is worth a thousand words. The core of “The […]
Broadway actor Greg Watanabe brings resister Hirabayashi’s story to S.F.
December 7, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Theater is terrific when the many elements that comprise a production come together as a whole, as was the case with “Hold These Truths,†a one-man play depicting the late civil rights icon Gordon Hirabayashi’s life. The San Francisco chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League sponsored the Nov. 18 performance, which took place at […]
JAs launch petition to prevent fence at Tule Lake
September 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Filmmaker (“Children of the Camps†and “From a Silk Cocoon: A Japanese American Renunciation Storyâ€) and licensed therapist Satsuki Ina has started an online petition to stop the proposed fence at the Tulelake Municipal Airport, the site of the former Tule Lake Segregation Center, where persons of Japanese descent were incarcerated during World War II. […]
George Yoshida, musician and educator, dies
May 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment
George Yoshida, a longtime musician, educator, band leader and author of a book on Japanese American contributions to music, died on May 13, 2014 due to a stroke. He was 92. “A giant has fallen … a modest man whose enormous musical soul and heart-filled zest for life that touched people around the world has […]
NPS solicits public comment on the future of the Tule Lake Unit
October 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The National Park Service held a planning meeting for the general public in San Francisco Japantown regarding the Tule Lake Unit of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. The Sept. 19 meeting, held at Nihonmachi Terrace, is one of more than a dozen that were held along the West Coast, along […]
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Protesting the injustice of the incarceration
Have you seen “Resistance at Tule Lake†yet? It’s the film by Konrad Aderer that was featured on PBS this past Sunday. It is screening at the Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival at the California Museum in Sacramento on Saturday, May 26: http://www.sapff.org/2018-festival-programming/. Now there is a link through PBS so the public can view […]