Faces
By Jeff Favre
Remembering camps means choosing to act
E
very April for 15 years, Paul Nakamura has helped lead an interfaith service at Manzanar National Historic Site, one of
10 locations where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. He wasn’t interned, but much of his family
was, including his wife, Kikuno, so he knows firsthand how much it has impacted the lives of those who were held without cause. His decades of fighting for civil rights, and
MARK CARLSON
for redress and reparations for those who were forced into camps, led the Manzanar Committee (
blog.manzanarcommittee.org) to bestow its Sue Kunitomi Embrey Legacy Award upon Nakamura. The award is named after a longtime activist and the committee’s former chair, who died in 2006. Nakamura’s work on the interfaith service, held each
April for the annual pilgrimage to the site, was a bit of ser- endipity. “A friend asked me to pinch hit for him because he could not go. I did it that time, and I’ve been doing it ever since,” said Nakamura, an ELCA pastor who has served Lutheran Oriental Church, Torrance, Calf. Nakamura said the pilgrimage remains important to
those who endured the camps, as does the service that accompanies it, which is led by Christian pastors and Bud- dhist ministers. “The pilgrimage is important, not only because people
can look back, but it’s also so they can look forward at all they have accomplished up till now,” he said. “We’ve had doctors and senators and all kinds of professionals who were in the camps.” Fighting for civil rights was part of Nakamura’s life long
100 + birthdays
Paul Nakamura (shown with his wife, Kikuno) has for 15 years helped lead an interfaith service at the Manzanar National Historic Site, where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.
before he helped run the pilgrimage service. He was present in 1965 when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Some family members were able to see him receive the
award, which he said made it extra special. But just as impor- tant for Nakamura is how the annual event has grown. Now, he said, teachers and students visit the site and learn about this part of America’s past so it will not be forgotten. At the closing remarks of the pilgrimage this year
co-chair Bruce Embrey said, “It is easy now, some 70 years later, to see why our community wished to forget and get on with their lives. But because of the civil rights move- ment, and because of people of valor like [the] Rev. Paul Nakamura, [late activist] Paul Tsuneishi and so many others, our com- munity could not forget. We remembered and chose to act.”
Author bio: Favre is an assistant professor at Pierce College in Los Ange- les and a freelance theater critic.
105: Victor Kjenstad, Holy Redeemer, Bellflower, Calif.; Luella Trin- rud, Trinity, Evanston, Ill.; Luella Young, St. John, Decorah, Iowa. 104: Winnifred Schreiner, First, Winthrop, Minn. 102: Lillian Anderson, Bethel, Viroqua, Wis.; Mary Bohner, Salem, Millersburg, Pa.; Gudrun Milbrodt, Our Savior, Denver; Frances Torstenson, Trinity, Minne-
apolis. 101: Helen Kulseth, Redeemer, Thief River Falls, Minn. 100: Carrie Berg, Bethel, Oconto Falls, Wis.; Cora Deike, Zion, Fredericksburg, Texas; Helen Lerud, First, Hoople, N.D.; Ethel Moritz, Grace, Monroe, Wis.
Send stories Share your stories of ELCA Lutherans and your 100+ members in “Faces.” Send to
lutheran@thelutheran.org or “Faces,” The Lutheran, 8765 W. Hig gins Rd., Chicago, IL 60631.
July 2015 43
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