There's a special way to honor veterans and Japanese American citizens who missed graduating from their home town high school due to wartime circumstances. Through its Operation Recognition program, the Sacramento County Board of Education will provide high school diplomas to qualifying veterans (proof of honorable discharge required) who left high school to serve in World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War. Also eligible for belated diplomas are those Japanese American citizens who were forced to leave their local high school due to incarceration in a WW II relocation center. Diplomas are awarded even if the honoree earned a G.E.D. or went on to college without having received h

The 12th annual Sacramento Film and Music Festival opens its SummerFEST program tonight by honoring another long time Festival director.  This year's Film Arts Service Award will be presented to Cecile Mouette Downs, director of the Sacramento French Film Festival.  Cecille has worked previously for the Film Department of the French Embassy in New York City, and as a Press Officer for the Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel in Paris. She has a master’s degree in history, is a regular contributor to “France Today” magazine, and was the 2010 recipient of the Arts Executive of the Year Award from the Sacramento Arts & Business Council. This is the fifth Film Arts Service Award to be presented

68 years ago on this day, on May 13,1942, in the middle of World War II, buses began taking all people of Japanese heritage in the City of Sacramento (approximately 3800), including some from Southside Park neighborhood (citizen and non-citizen, adult and child, on no basis other than ethnic heritage) from Memorial Auditorium to a temporary camp at Walerga (near the present day Walerga Park near the intersection of Madison & I-80;) for internment, as part of the larger internment of people of Japanese heritage from all areas of the West Coast.  I Street between 15th and 16th, and 15th between I and J, were blocked off for this purpose.  The removal continued thru the morning of May 16.  Pe

 Watura "Wat" Misaka's name might not register on even the greatest sport buff's radar, but he certainly holds a prestigious place in the history of the National Basketball Association as the first person of color to be drafted into the NBA. Husband and wife producer team Bruce and Christine Johnson are doing their part to shed some much-deserved spotlight on Misaka with their documentary, "Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story." "Sports really do transcend...this is a great story of this person who triumphed and broke down barriers with such grace. I think it also teaches us to look at what problems still exist and how we can transcend them," said Christine. Presented by the Sacramento Asi