Frank Emi, leader of the World War II Fair Play Committee/Resisters of Conscience presented an overview of this year's program for NCRR.  He said that today, as in World War II, fear and nationalism prevent individuals and groups from challenging executive power.  In 1944 few dared to support him and other Fair Play Committee members as they refused induction into the armed forces.  They refused to be drafted while they and their families were unjustly incarcerated in American concentration camps; today President Bush wages a hopeless, immoral war in Iraq in which thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been killed.  NCRR supports Lt. Ehren Watada and others like him who take a courageous stand against the Iraq war.

Helga Aguayo, wife of Agustin Aguayo, the U.S. soldier whose conscientious objector status was denied by the military and thus forced to go “absent without leave” Cedrick Shimo, U.S. soldier punished by the military during World War II for protesting travel restrictions, and Laila Al-Marayati, a spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affiars Committee (MPAC) participated in a panel discussion moderated by Lane Hirabayashi, UCLA professor. 

Tad Nakamura used archival footage of the first Manzanar “pilgrimage” in his film Pilgrimage and explored the special significance that Manzanar has to a post 9/11 generation of young people.  Congressman Xavier Becerra spoke about renewed efforts to obtain redress for Japanese Latin Americans.