The Venice Japanese American Memorial Monument (VJAMM) Committee and the Manzanar Committee announce the deadline extension for the sixth annual Arnold Maeda Manzanar Pilgrimage Grant to Friday, Jan. 16.
Currently enrolled college and university students are eligible for a $1,000 grant that will pay for transportation, room, and board, and for their participation in the planning for the weekend of the 56th annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, scheduled for April 24-26.
Applicants may submit an essay, poem, or short story that incorporates the legacy of the late Arnold Maeda, a charter member of the VJAMM Committee. At the age of 15, Maeda reported with his family to the northwest corner of Venice and Lincoln boulevards in April 1942 for transportation to Manzanar, which would become one of the ten War Relocation Authority incarceration “camps.” The Maeda family, as did so many others, lost their home, their business, and their liberty in the wake of Executive Order 9066.
The VJAMM Committee successfully raised community support and the funding to install and dedicate the VJAMM obelisk on April 27, 2017 on that northwest corner of Venice and Lincoln in Venice as a reminder of what happened and what should never happen again to any minority group based solely on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion.
Suspension of constitutional rights, including the writ of habeas corpus and due process, enabled the U.S. government in 1942 to forcibly remove persons of Japanese ancestry from coastal areas in Washington, Oregon, and California. Executive Order 9066, signed on Feb. 19, 1942, cited “military necessity” as the reason for this violation of civil rights.
Some 125,000 persons of Japanese ancestry lost their homes, their businesses, and their liberty, and were incarcerated in Department of Justice detention centers, temporary assembly centers, and War Relocation Authority camps across the country. Many remained incarcerated through the duration of World War II and some were released long after the war was over.
Today, suspension of civil rights, including the writ of habeas corpus and due process, is enabling the U.S. government to seize persons right off the streets in the name of “national security” and in violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable and unwarranted search and seizure.
In its inaugural year of 2025, the new federal government administration has already committed a tremendous number of violations of constitutional rights in its struggle against DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion. The newly empowered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reported holding 65,135 people in detention facilities throughout the U.S., the highest level ever publicly reported by the agency.
Almost half, 48%, of the ICE detainees in custody as of Nov. 16 lacked any criminal charges or convictions in the U.S. and were being held solely because of “civil violations of U.S. immigration law,” again, without benefit of the writ of habeas corpus or any due process before imprisonment or deportation.
To help connect the dots, visit the transcript of Rachel Maddow’s podcast at MSN Now: https://www.ms.now/msnbc-podcast/msnbc-podcast/maddow-burn-order-podcast/episode-3-one-drop
The conversation, “One Drop: Maybe security wasn’t the whole motivation for what was going on
here,” includes dialogue with Norman Mineta, David Mineta, Edward Ennis, James Rowe,
Dillon Meyer, Earl Warren, Satsuki Ina, Aiko Herzog-Yoshinaga, Frank Abe, and Adam Scrager.
For more information on the Arnold Maeda Manzanar Pilgrimage Grant, visit venicejamm.org or manzanarcommittee.org.