Sue Kunitomi Embrey, co-founder of the Manzanar Committee and lifelong educator, testified before the Commission about her own incarceration at Manzanar and her decades of activism to preserve memory and demand redress. Her testimony traced her journey from a teenage internee to the leader of pilgrimages that transformed silence into action.

• Family Removal: Born and raised in Los Angeles, she was sent to Manzanar on May 9, 1942, with her widowed mother and six siblings. One brother volunteered for the Army from camp; three others later served in the U.S. military, including one killed in Korea.

• Life in Camp: Worked making camouflage nets and became managing editor of the Manzanar Free Press. She described incarceration as “the most traumatic experience of my life.”

• Breaking Silence: In 1969, helped organize the first Manzanar Pilgrimage with Asian American student activists. The event sparked requests for information and began to break the community’s silence.

• Manzanar Committee: Formed to educate the public and secure recognition of the camps. Successfully pushed for Manzanar’s designation as a California Historical Landmark in 1972, despite resistance to using the words “concentration camp” and “injustice” on the plaque.

• Pilgrimages & Exhibits: Annual pilgrimages and exhibits like Executive Order 9066 (Dorothea Lange photographs) and Months of Waiting (artworks) created spaces for community reflection, especially for Sansei who had grown up with little knowledge of camp.

• Facing Resistance: Recalled painful moments, like Nisei elders walking out of a 1973 screening of Bob Nakamura’s film Manzanar, unwilling to confront memories.

• Census Deception: Exposed how WWII census confidentiality was suspended, contradicting the Census Bureau’s claims and leaving her embarrassed as a government community specialist.

• Vision of Justice: Declared that resettlement was never truly over, and that redress must go beyond apology. Reparations must be direct and monetary for the loss of civil rights, psychological damage, and destruction of community.