2017 / Legacy project for Japanese American wartime detention site at Tuna Canyon: Fundraiser set for Oct.8
The Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition will hold a fundraising luncheon on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 11:00 am, to help support efforts to preserve and share the stories of Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, Japanese Peruvians, and others unjustly detained after the outbreak of World War II.
Featured during the luncheon will be an original performance created especially for the event by the Grateful Crane Ensemble based on the diaries, letters, and poems of the Tuna Canyon prisoners detained between December 1941 and October 1943. Also honored will be the unsung heroes of the Japanese American community, among them Tak Hamano of Umeya Rice Cake Company who passed away earlier this year.
Ann Burroughs, Chief Executive Officer for the Japanese American National Museum, will be a luncheon speaker. Helen Ota will serve as emcee.
Monies raised will help provide the matching funds required under the terms of the National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites grant recently awarded to the Coalition. Help is also sought to cover the cost of transporting the widely acclaimed Tuna Canyon “Only the Oaks Remain” exhibit to the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center, a Japanese American history museum in Portland.
Following the June 25, 2013 City of Los Angeles designation of the Tuna Canyon Detention Center site as a historic-cultural monument, the collection and preservation of individual stories, photographs, and other memorabilia began. The Legacy Project was subsequently established with June Aochi Berk as Chief Project Director. To date, 14 oral histories have been captured.
The luncheon will be held on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 11:00 am at Quiet Cannon, 901 Via San Clemente, Montebello. Tickets are $75 per person.
For luncheon reservations and sponsorship opportunities, email remembertunacanyon@gmail.com or go to http://www.tunacanyon.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/sponsorship-opportunities-legacy-grant.pdf.
