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WE ARE ALL AMERICANS! FREE Outdoor JAZZ Concert with Paul Yonemura & Friends -Sun Nov 2
November 2, 2025 at 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Join us for a fun-filled afternoon – FREE JAZZ Concert with Paul Yonemura and Friends.
Option. Order Delica’s Japanese Bento Lunch & tea available by Pre-orders only ($20) Free Seating available indoors.
In tribute to the 100/442/MIS Nisei Veterans and to honor their Legacy for Peace and Reconciliation, NJAHS is proud to present WE ARE ALL AMERICANS!
with Paul Yonemura and FRIENDS, a five member Jazz ensemble for an hour long FREE concert at the MIS Historic Learning Center, Crissy Field west, Presidio of San Francisco.
Musician-composer Paul Yonemura celebrates and honors his mentor band leader, the late George Yoshida, a former MIS Nisei soldier, and acknowledges his MIS father the late Mas Yonemura with this Pre-Veterans Day JAZZ Concert at this historic site*.
Funded in part by the GRANTS for the ARTS and the K/T Foundation, members and supporters of NJAHS.
- BLDG 640 HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE. Located at the historic site of the first US Army language school which secretly trained Japanese American soldiers in Japanese military intelligence at the start of World War II, the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center, Building 640 in the Presidio of San Francisco honors and commemorates the legacy of the Japanese American Soldiers who served as military intelligence linguists during WWII in the Pacific. The National Japanese American Historical Society together with The Presidio Trust, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area ensure that the courage, sacrifice, and patriotism of these veterans are remembered by future generations.
The history of these linguists is rooted in secrecy. The Army Language School, founded on November 1, 1941, one month prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Some fifty-eight second-generation Japanese Americans, or Nisei, along with two Caucasian soldiers, were trained as military interpreters in an abandoned airplane hangar on Crissy Field. Despite austere conditions, the program produced about 6,000 graduates. The Nisei’s specialized knowledge of Japanese culture and language gave American forces a tactical and strategic advantage, and their work helped lay the foundation for a democratic Japan after the war.
Ironically, in 1942, the Nisei soldiers and the school was moved to Camp Savage, Minnesota, and later to Fort Snelling, MN while their families among the 120,000 Japanese American were excluded from their homes on the West Coast and eventually incarcerated in American concentration camps.
- In 2000, the MIS was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for their meritorious service, In 2012, the veterans of the MIS along with the famed100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team were honored with a Congressional Gold Medal.
