The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), in cooperation with the Florin Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and the Florin Manzanar Committee will be hosting the 4th annual Bridging Communities: Preserving the Legacy program in the Bay Area from February-March of 2015. The Bridging Communities program seeks to connect Japanese American youth, American Muslim youth, and their allies by synthesizing the differences and commonalities that bind us together.
The program was previously hosted in 2011 and 2013, in partnership with the San Francisco chapter of the JACL and with funding from the National Park Service. CAIR-SFBA staff and the program alumni remain indebted to them for their leadership in creating the foundation for this innovative program.
Participants in 2015 look forward to:
- Attending the San Jose Day of Remembrance
- Touring the San Jose Japanese-American Museum
- Engaging in a series of workshops covering: oral history, culture, and activism
The program culminates in a 3-day trip with the Florin JACL to the historic Manzanar incarceration camp that held over 10,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII. Students participate in a Manzanar-after-dusk discussion program with hundreds of other college and high school students, attend an interfaith remembrance ceremony, and hear first-person accounts about the experiences of the survivors as they tour the camp grounds.
The program is open to all high school and college students residing in the Bay Area.
To download an application, please see Bridging Communities Application 2015. Completed applications should be sent to: lporras@cair.com no later than February 9, 2015.
For questions about the program, partnership opportunities, and the workshops, please contact us at 408.986.9874 or by emailing us at lporras@cair.com.