about the rhetoric and appreciate the support of these groups.

“I’m in love with the Japanese-American community,” Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said at the vigil. “I remember on 9/11 … they stood as our human chain of defense to prevent another internment from happening in America.”

After the 2001 attacks, NCRR held a candlelight vigil with local Muslims. It was the first time many leaders from the two communities met.

A Buddhist temple also hosted a small iftar dinner to break the fast for Ramadan, a tradition that would continue for a number of years. Muslim American leaders attended Day of Remembrance events to commemorate the internment and took part in pilgrimages to the Manzanar camp.

It was on one of these trips that someone from CAIRsuggested bringing high school students to Manzanar, Masaoka said. That idea eventually became Bridging Communities, a program allowing Muslim and Japanese American youth to discover their histories and learn about civil rights together. It is currently being recast as a college fellowship program. Bridging Communities also has run in Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento and other cities.

The goal is to create community leaders who will hold the government accountable, said Traci Ishigo, program coordinator at the Japanese American Citizens League, Pacific Southwest District.

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Megan Ono was part of one of the program’s first cohorts. At the vigil in Little Tokyo, she performed an offering of incense, then walked over to the small gathering of Muslim Americans to stand in support