Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages

It all started in 2016…

The founders of the Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages (JAMP), Kimiko Marr and Marissa Fujimoto, met for the first time while on the 2016 Minidoka Pilgrimage. The roommates found they had two things in common: they both had family who were incarcerated and they are both filmmakers. Kimiko shared her brainchild with Marissa. Together they founded Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages (JAMP) in order to document pilgrimage stories, to share the experiences of those who were incarcerated, and to shed light on the continuing intergenerational trauma. Kimiko and Marissa have visited all ten WRA camps and all sixteen assembly centers.

In 2018 Kimiko and Marissa were awarded a Japanese American Confinement Sites grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. This grant enabled them to produce the JAMP website, to attend all the pilgrimages, and to produce mini-documentaries. These mini-documentaries highlight the experience of families who make the pilgrimages to the camps and assembly centers.

During the summer of 2020 JAMP partnered with the National Park Service and over 70 other organizations to organize and produce a virtual pilgrimage called “Tadaima.” Because all in-person pilgrimages had been canceled, Tadaima spanned nine weeks. Tadaima covered the history of Japanese Americans from immigration to today as well as the WWII incarceration of Japanese people worldwide.