A standing-room only audience at the August Women’s Peace Event provided a receptive group for the performers and speakers at

standing-room-only audience of 350 provided a receptive group for the August Women’s Peace Event performers and speakers at the Secretary of State’s auditorium on August 6, 2005. Approximately 25 Florin JACL members attended this important event.

Florin JACL president Cheryl Miles was a skillful Mistress of Ceremonies for the one-hour-and-forty-minute program held on the 60^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima,

Ably chaired by Florin’s own Janice Nakashima, the program opened with Sakura Minyo Japanese Folk Dance Group. Hiroshima survivor, Kyoko Yamamoto, recounted her story of living through the attack. In Japanese she painfully described how she, as a 15-year-old American, grew up and worked in the doomed city. Translating for Ms. Yamamoto was the Reverend Seichi Asahi of the Koyasan Buddhist Church.

Our own Marielle Tsukamoto told the touching story of Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes as children brought strings of origami cranes to the stage. A short video of Sadako’s statue in Hiroshima’s Children’s Peace Memorial filmed by Dr. Harry Wong followed the presentation of paper cranes.

A statement by a World War II veteran ordered to Hiroshima just after the bombing and currently suffering from radiation illnesses was read.

Activist Inga Olsen of Tri-Valley CAREs, an anti-nuclear weapons group, urged those in attendance to renew their commitment to peace by writing elected representatives to stop funding nuclear arms. The final act, a rousing performance by Sacramento Taiko Dan, brought the audience to their feet and enlivened their spirits as they left the auditorium.

The Florin JACL was one of twenty sponsors for the event, which is in its nineteenth year and is co-sponsored annually by the Chapter. The late Mary Tsukamoto, a Florin JACL pioneer, was a founding member of this event.

One hour of refreshments, browsing and visiting sponsors’ tables and displays preceded the program. A number of interested people visited the Florin JACL display and picked up literature.