From left: Matthew Clingerman, GLA JACL scholarship chair; Seia Watanabe, National JACL vice president of public affairs; scholarship recipients River Vu, Elena Miyamoto, Ashley Mori, Keerstin Baltazar, Hikaru Nakasone, H. Miles Dodson; GLA JACL President Mitchell Matsumura.
The Greater Los Angeles JACL chapter held its 2026 scholarship luncheon on June 7 in the meeting room of the Torrance Municipal Airport-Zamperini Field in Torrance to recognize six former high school students headed to college.
Receiving awards from the chapter were Keerstin Baltazar, H. Miles Dodson, Elena Miyamoto, Ashley Mori, Hikaru Nakasone and River Vu.
The event’s speaker was Seia Watanabe. National JACL vice president of public affairs.
2026 Scholarship Recipients
Keerstin Baltazar graduated from Palos Verdes Peninsula High School and is going to UC Santa Barbara, where she plans to major in pre-economics.
H. Miles Dodson graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City and is headed to Cleveland, Ohio, to attend Case Western Reserve University, where he plans to major in neurology.
Elena Miyamoto graduated from Woodbridge High School in Irvine and is going to UC San Diego to study cognitive sciences.
Hikaru Nakasone graduated from South Torrance High School and will be attending UC Riverside to major in business.
River Vu graduated from Marina High School in Huntington Beach and is headed to UC Berkeley to study computer science.
GLA JACL’s Hana Uno Shepard Memorial Scholarship is named after a chapter member who was active in the redress movement of the 1980s.
The students briefly introduced themselves.
Chapter President Mitchell Matsumura introduced Watanabe. In addition to being a member of JACL’s National Board, she has served as the Pacific Southwest District’s representative to the JACL National Youth/Student Council, a board fellow at the Little Tokyo Service Center, First Princess on the 2024 Nisei Week Court, social media coordinator of the Little Tokyo Community Council’s Go Little Tokyo initiative, and organizer with the Manzanar Committee.
Watanabe stressed that “the opportunities we enjoy today did not simply happen on their own. The rights we have, the communities we belong to and the spaces that we occupy today exist because of previous generations that chose to organize, advocate and invest in those who came after them, and that investment is why we’re gathered here today.”
Matsumura introduced two of the chapter’s founding members, Louise Sakamoto and Miyako Kadogawa; the scholarship chair, Matthew Clingerman; and Ron Ikejiri, former JACL Washington, D.C. representative, candidate for JACL national president, and former Gardena city councilman.
George Toshio Johnston of Pacific Citizen contributed to this report.