CSULA student veterans adopt neighborhood cemetery
Evergreen Cemetery is burial site of four Congressional Medal of Honor recipients
What & Who: Members of the Golden Eagle Vets at Cal State L.A., in coordination with the University’s Veterans Affairs office, have recently adopted the Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, the burial site for numerous World War II veterans, including four of the 21 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team—Joe Hayashi, Sadao Munemori, Kiyoshi K. Muranaga and Ted T. Tanouye.
The CSULA students will begin beautifying a portion of the cemetery by clearing brush, debris and trash, as part of their organization’s monthly community service project.
When: Tuesday, Dec. 11, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
Where: Evergreen Cemetery, located at 204 North Evergreen Avenue in Los Angeles. It is about 10 minutes away from the CSULA campus.
More: Established on August 23, 1877, Evergreen is considered the oldest cemetery in the Greater Los Angeles area. A monument dedicated to the 442nd Regimental Combat Unit that served in World War II was installed at the cemetery on Memorial Day in 1949.
On June 21, 2000, President Bill Clinton presented the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, to 20 additional Japanese American veterans for their bravery during World War II. Hayashi, Muranaga and Tanouye were among those 20 Medal of Honor recipients. Munemori was the only member of the 100th/442nd that was honored immediately with the Medal of Honor following his death in combat.
Info: To arrange interviews or photos, call the Public Affairs office at Cal State L.A. in advance at (323) 343-3050. For details on the service project, call Laura Shigemitsu, director of the Veterans Affairs office at Cal State L.A., (323) 343-3840.
# # #
Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 225,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu