Friends of Rancho Los Cerritos is hosting a presentation this weekend entitled “Internment: The WWII Experience of Japanese Californians” that will explore the experience of Japanese Americans in California following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Perceived as a security threat, California’s Japanese were collected, deprived of their property, and forced to live in heavily guarded camps created to contain them. Japanese-Americans born in the United States, naturalized citizens and recent immigrants alike survived this bitter experience and were released only after the war.
Many were then reunited with husbands, fathers and sons who, though also Japanese, spent those years proudly serving in the United States military.
Lillian Kawasaki has been involved in the restoration of Manzanar National Historic Site, one of the Japanese relocation centers established in Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas.
She will host a panel discussion on this subject, accompanied by several Japanese citizens who lived through these trying times.
The lecture will be presented Saturday, April 19 at 10 a.m. at the Rancho Los Cerritos Historic Site, 4600 Virginia Road in Long Beach. Admission is $3 for members and students and $5 for non-members.
Reserve a seat by calling (562) 570-1755.
For more information visit www.rancholoscerritos.org.
