LITTLE TOKYO VIGIL #3

by Art For A Change Tuesday, Oct. 02, 2001 at 3:28 PM
vallen@art-for-a-change.com

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

LITTLE TOKYO VIGIL #...
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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 Arab Americans and their possible internment in the event of a full scale war. In this photograph, one member of L.A.'s Arab American community is welcomed with open arms to the event. Perhaps around two dozen Arab Americans participated in the vigil... and Omar Riki of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Michel Shehadeh of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Ra-id Faraj of the Council on Islamic American Relations, directly addressed the crowd. A former prisoner in the Manzanar internment camp, Ms. Lillian Nakano... told those gathered of the experience of being stripped of all rights and property. Many in the crowd had tears in their eyes... not only for the historical wrong committed against Japanese Americans... but for the very real possibility of a future internment of

Arab Americans.

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/

Original: LITTLE TOKYO VIGIL #3