Welcome to Manzanar: A Video Gallery

To introduce you to the Manzanar campsite, its culture and to some of the pilgrims, here are a collection of videos I shot during my journey. I had to travel light so I only took the company digital camera and used its video function. The sound quality is a bit choppy but you can hear everything that's going on.

Before the speaker program starts, Laura Engelken and Kat Townes from the Institute for Leadership Development and Study of Pacific and Asian North American Religion tie solidarity flags along the outside of the cemetery monument inside the Manzanar campsite.



Bagpiper Dan Sprague pays his respects at an unmarked gravesite inside the Manzanar cemetery. He takes a couple of seconds to tune up, but once he does, it's quite a remarkable moment.



Pilgrims join in and sing "Don't Fence Me In," an annual tradition as part of the speaker program. They are led by members of UCLA Kyodo Taiko.



Mary Kageyama Nomura, the famed Songbird of Manzanar, followed with her rendition of "The Manzanar Song," which was written by the late Louie Frizzell, a beloved teacher at Manzanar High School.



One of the more powerful traditions of the pilgrimage is the "roll call of the camps." Each year, 10 people are selected to represent the 10 internment camps (Manzanar, CA; Tule Lake, CA; Poston, AZ; Gila River, AZ; Granada, CO; Heart Mountain, WY; Minidoka, ID; Topaz, UT; Rohwer, AK; and Jerome, AK) that were opened during World War II, forcing hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans to uproot throughout the war. Volunteers take a piece of wood with the name of a camp inscribed on it from the dais across to the cemetery and place it on the monument. An interfaith memorial service is held afterwards. You can see parts of the Shinto ceremony after the roll call.



After the memorial service, the program ends with a traditional Tanko Bushi Ondo dance led by UCLA Kyodo Taiko. These dances have been performed for centuries and depict scenes of traditional Japanese life. This particular dance shows the life of a coal miner.