SACRAMENTO, Calif. — During a reunion event hosted by the Florin Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (Florin JACL), one of ABC10's stories made a special appearance. We learned organizers chose to screen our story about the pilgrimage to Manzanar.
Manzanar, located just outside of Death Valley, is one of 10 internment camps where more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent were incarcerated following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Our story followed a group of former incarcerees as they made the pilgrimage to Manzanar and recounted their own experiences of enduring some of the harshest conditions in the camps.
Josh Kaizuka, the co-president of Florin JACL, says having journalists cover this story in particular was crucial to ensure history is told accurately and not repeated.
"Today, there are real dangers of going back in time to where groups can get discriminated against, be targeted, marginalized, even more than they already are. I think people seeing a story like this realize that there's crews, news teams out there that can bring out the story so these things don't happen again," said Kaizuka.
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A group of former incarcerees with the Florin JACL make the annual pilgrimage from Sacramento to Manzanar National Historic Site. Today, it continues to be one of the best-preserved internment camps in the U.S.
"It really puts the experience back home. You can read about it, but I don't think you really get it until you're actually at a site," said Kaizuka. "[At Manzanar], you can actually walk through the same type of barracks where people had to put tin can lids to fill holes to keep the place from getting dust in there."
The reunion event featuring our ABC10 story was an opportunity for travelers who made the annual pilgrimage to Manzanar to come together and share their experiences and what they learned.
Kaizuka says organizers believed our story fit in with their program and they wanted to make sure all the travelers had the opportunity to see the piece.
At ABC10, we stand for you. It means we also strive to be transparent about the feedback we receive on stories, which includes highlighting the local impact our reporting has on our diverse communities across Northern California.
You can watch and read our full story about the pilgrimage to Manzanar HERE.
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