By David and Carol Kawamoto
Since 1946, National JACL has provided financial assistance to our community’s top scholars through its National JACL Scholarship Program. The first scholarship awards were provided by Mrs. Haruye Masaoka, in memory of her son, Ben Frank Masaoka, who was killed in action during World War II while serving with the legendary 442nd Regimental Combat Team in France.
This year, the program is awarding 36 scholarship awards totaling $85,500. This JACL program, which began by providing college scholarships for veterans returning to the U.S. from WWII, now provides monetary awards for the following categories: Freshmen, Undergraduate, Graduate, Law, Creative and Performing Arts and Student Aid.
This program is made possible by the generous donations from our community. Just as Mrs. Masaoka generously gave in 1946, we have numerous scholarship endowments that were created to aid our community’s scholars. Each scholarship carries the name of the donor family, and one can find more information on each scholarship on the JACL website (www.jacl.org).
In 2026, a committee from JACL’s Central California District evaluated the Freshmen applications for their first year. The CCDC committee was chaired by Debbie Ikeda of the Fresno chapter. The committee members and their respective chapters are Marcia Chung (Fresno), Katsuyo Howard (Fresno), Conor Hustedde (CCDC Youth Representative), Dale Ikeda (Clovis), Shelly Kiritani (Fresno), Charlene Kiyuna (Fresno) and Brian Tsukimura (Fresno/CCDC governor).
For the Undergraduate, Graduate, Law, Creative and Performing Arts and Student Aid categories, a committee from the Pacific Southwest District reviewed the applications and selected the winners for 2026.
The PSW committee was chaired by then-PSW District Gov. Joseph Gu of the SELANOCO chapter. The committee members and their respective chapters are Cathy Arakaki (Las Vegas), Aiko Dzikowski (Venice-West Los Angeles), Denise Fuse (Arizona), Alice Ishigame-Tao (SELANOCO-Orange County), Sarah Taketa (Ventura County) and Carol Young (Venice-West Los Angeles).
Please join us in thanking the volunteer committees who generously gave their time and expertise to evaluate the applicants. Without their work, this program would not be possible.
We also want to particularly thank our JACL staffer, Matthew Weisbly, for all of his work on this program. With the JACL’s financial challenges, he is one of the few remaining staff members and has assisted with the scholarships in addition to his numerous other tasks. We can never thank Matthew enough for his hard work and dedication to the JACL.
As has been the case for every year that we’ve been involved with this program, the recipients are a truly impressive group. Their scholastic excellence, extracurricular activities and community service are unparalleled.
The JACL is glad to recognize them with their appearance in the Pacific Citizen’s Scholarship Special Issue and reward their excellence with a financial grant. Congratulations to all of them. We look forward to great things from them in the future.