The 2026 recipients are Dan Bui Kubota and Dianne Chevez Hernandez.
The Venice Japanese American Memorial Monument Committee and the Manzanar Committee congratulate the 2026 recipients of the 6th Annual Arnold Maeda Manzanar Pilgrimage Grant: Dan Bui Kubota of Stanford University and Dianne Chevez Hernandez of East Los Angeles College.
Kubota and Hernandez will each receive $1,000 to cover the costs of participating in the upcoming 57th Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, set to take place April 24-26 at the Manzanar National Historic Site in Independence, Calif., as well as helping the Manzanar Committee plan and organize the event.
Dan Bui Kubota
Kubota is studying mechanical engineering at Stanford and plans to minor in earth systems. She hopes to combine her passion for design with her interest in environmental service policy.
“While Japanese Americans are not being explicitly targeted now as they were during incarceration, other groups are,” said Kubota. “How can our community come together and stand in solidarity with undocumented people, given our history of discrimination by the U.S. government?”
She is looking forward to attending the upcoming Manzanar Pilgrimage for the first time.
“I hope to embody Maeda’s legacy of activism long after the pilgrimage has passed,” said Kubota.
Hernandez is planning on becoming a psychological science major at East Los Angeles College and hopes to do research in forensic psychology.
Dianne Chevez Hermandez
“Participating in the Manzanar Pilgrimage would be an eye-opening experience that would help me embrace my own culture, honor the past, reflect on the present . . . while trying to contribute to a better future for those around me,” said Hernandez. “Life might feel heavy at times, but it is to make us more resilient. Bad times do not last forever, and we must keep going to see them get better. Everyone [has the capacity] to shine, thrive and make change in their own lives and in the lives of others.”
The Arnold Maeda Manzanar Pilgrimage Grant encourages college students to research the activism and legacy of Maeda. In April 1942, the U.S government forcibly removed a then-15-year-old Maeda and his parents from their home in Santa Monica, Calif. They then reported to the northwest corner of Venice and Lincoln Boulevards with only what they could carry due to the issuance of Executive Order 9066.
Years later in 2010, Maeda became a charter member of the Venice Japanese American Memorial Monument Committee, determined to build a reminder of what had happened at that corner and to warn others that such an unconstitutional injustice should never again be perpetrated by the government “against any group, solely on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, race or religion” (from the VJAMM text).
For more information about the Arnold Maeda Manzanar Pilgrimage Grant, visit www.venicejamm.org or Facebook.com/VeniceJAMM or www.manzanarcommittee.org.
