More Photos from Memorial Day Services 2022
Photos from Memorial Day Weekend 2002
On Saturday, May 28, various Sangha members from the Buddhist Temple of San Diego visited cemeteries in the Imperial valley to honor Japanese Americans buried in cemeteries there. This is an annual pilgrimage paying gratitude to the Japanese American community there, both current and previous generations.
Making this pilgrimage were Rev. Laverne Imori, Marie Galvez, Ralph Honda., and Norman Kiyono.
Many thanks to Ralph Honda, who supplied these photographs.
Calexico, Mountain View Cemetery
The Calexico cemetery is not irrigated and sections consist of bare earth. It has a lonely feel.
Rev. Laverne Imori leads chanting on the portable altar.
The portale shrine used now for many years, handmade by the late Rev. Jim Yanagihara.
Rev. Laverne Imori in gassho.
Brawley’s Riverview Cemetery
The Riverview Cemetery has more maintained landscaping.
Additional picture of the Brawley Buddhist Church marker, taken several years ago.
El Centro’s Evergreen Cemetery
The Evergreen Cemetery has more trees and palms and provides more shade.
Our Connection to the Imperial Valley
Our Temple makes this annual pilgrimage not only because Temple members here in San Diego have roots in the Imperial Valley, and in some cases living relatives there, but also because of the generosity of two Buddhist temples shortly after the end of World War II,
In the confusion and displacement following the release of many Japanese Americans — who had been taken from homes in the valley and incarcerated in one of many internment camps further removed from the West Coast.
When it became apparent that population shifts meant that the El Centro and Brawley Temples were no longer viable, the Temples responded to our need to reconstruct our onaijin or altar area. Most of the furnishings you see today came from those two Temples.