Panel Discussion: Resilience in the Japanese American Community

As an adjunct to the art show “Memories of Barbed Wire: Resilience in the Japanese American Community” a Panel Discussion with 3 leaders in the Japanese Community will discuss the incarceration during WWII, how the community met their challenges, and the importance of the story in light of today’s detention and deportation of immigrants.

The event is at the Museum of Contemporary Art at 1 pm, Saturday, July 18th. The cost is $5/person to help raise critical funds for the museum.

Speakers:

SAM MIHARA: Sam Mihara is a an award-winning lecturer on the history of the mass injustice perpetrated on the Japanese Americans during WWII. His awards include the Biennium Award for Education and Humanities from the Japanese American Citizens League and the prestigious Paul Gagnon Prize as the history educator of the year from the National Council for History Education – the first time to for Japanese American. His speaking engagements have included lectures at the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Congress, Harvard, UC Berkeley and Columbia Law School.

From ages 9 through 12, he was a child prisoner Heart Mountain, Wyoming concentration camp. He is the author of “Blindsided: The Life and Times of Sam Mihara”, an autobiography which describes his family’s experience with Japanese American incarceration.

WADE NOMURA: Wade Nomura was born and raised in Santa Barbara. His parents settled here after their release from the Poston, AZ concentration camp. He is a Carpinteria Councilman and two times Mayor, the President of the Santa Barbara Japanese American Citizens League, and author of “Creating Destiny” about his early life as a Japanese American after WWII.

Nomura is also an international speaker and project coordinator for The Rotary Foundation, having worked on over 50 international project missions, ranging from an ambulance project in Southern Chile to a large-scale water projects in Michoacan, Mexico and Haiti.

MARK MASAOKA: Mark Masaoka has been a leader in Little Tokyo (Los Angeles), working for housing for residents displaced by redevelopment, as Policy Director of the Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council, the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the Los Angeles County Children’s Planning Council, as well as helping found the Little Tokyo Community Impact Fund which collects small investment shares to purchase real estate that enables local ethnic legacy businesses to stay in business. He is part of Nikkei Progressives’ current collaborative work on immigrant rights and Black reparations.

Masaoka was a union autoworker and elected UAW officer. He was also active in the National Coalition for Redress & Reparations that led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that granted reparations to Japanese Americans who had been unjustly incarcerated by the government and the formal apology by President George W. Bush. His father Tad was active in the wartime Japanese American Citizens League, and served with four brothers in the highly-decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Show is at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, in the Norton Gallery. 2nd Floor Paseo Nuevo. Reserve your spot and help raise critical funds for the Museum, just $5: https://checkout.square.site/merchant/ZR46A3KA0F3BE/checkout/XXAIYPLPULMX2Q4Y6TXPPRP4?src=webqr