LITTLE TOKYO VIGIL #1

Around 400 people gathered in L.A.'s historic Little Tokyo district Friday evening (28th), for a candlelight vigil against hate crimes.

To commemorate the unconstitutional internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War 2, members of the Japanese American community held a candlelight vigil to warn against hate crimes committed against the Arab American community and their possible internment in the event of a full scale war. In this photograph, Labor Union Activist and Artist, David Monkawa, holds a candle symbolizing peace. Around 400 people showed up for the gathering... 70 % of which were Japanese Americans, many of which were actual veterans of the internment camps. The event was held on the very spot were Japanese Americans were rounded up by the U.S. Government and shipped off to remote, barbed-wire surrounded camps like the infamous

Manzanar internment camp.

Four mainstream organizations of the Japanese American community helped to organize the event... the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese American National Museum, the Japanese American Cultural and Community

Center, the Little Tokyo Service Center, and the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR). You can contact the NCRR at (213) 680-3484)... or you can visit their Website at the following URL; http://www.ncrr-la.org/