Thank you so much to Gerry and Gail Nanbu, and to everyone who stepped up to meet the Nanbu challenge. Thanks to your generosity, we have made a strong start in our fundraising push for the National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps! In just ten days, the community has met the Nanbu Family’s generous $25,000 matching challenge — meaning that we have now raised more than $50,000 of our $125,000 fundraising goal.
The next step is to expand the circle. We’re asking 1,000 people to give $125 or more: one dollar for each of the 125,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans who were rounded up and incarcerated during World War II.
Date: For release November 13, 2019
Press: Kathy Kojimoto (415) 572-3255; John Ota (415) 370-4497
General inquiries: tsuruforsolidarity@gmail.com
Japanese Americans from across the country will gather next spring in Washington, D.C. on June 5-7, 2020 for a “National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps.” We plan to bring 125,000 paper cranes, or tsuru, as expressions of solidarity with immigrant and refugee communities that are under attack today. The 125,000 cranes represent the members of our community who were rounded up and incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps during World War II, including both Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans.
Tsuru for Solidarity is a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates working to end detention sites and support front-line immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies. We stand on the moral authority of Japanese Americans who suffered the atrocities and legacy of U.S. concentration camps during WWII and we say, “Stop Repeating History!”
Never Again is NOW. Our mission is to:
educate, advocate, and protest to close all U.S. concentration camps;
build solidarity with other communities that have experienced forced removal, detention, deportation and separation of families;
coordinate intergenerational, cross-community healing circles addressing the trauma of our shared histories.
TSURU means crane in Japanese, and symbolizes peace, compassion, hope and healing. In the traditional Japanese folk art of paper folding (origami), it is a popular, easy-to-learn figure that children and adults of all abilities can create. The cranes we fold today are expressions of SOLIDARITY with children, families and communities that are under attack.
Click here to learn more about how you can join in making tsuru>>