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The SCATV2 Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony Festival video may now be seen On Demand at sierratv2.blogspot.com/p/video-on-demand.html. This video is a regular feature on the SCATV2 Comcast 2 schedule http://sierratv2.blogspot.com/p/schedule.html and may also be viewed On Demand from the home page.
Viewers share the activities of this year’s festival at the home of the first permanent Japanese colony in North American. The site is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. This 272-acre ranch is owned by the American River Conservancy.
In 1869, a group of Japanese people from Aizu Wakamatsu in modern Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, led by John Henry Schnell, arrived in California with the purpose of settling in California and to establish the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony at Gold Hill.
The Japanese people, who journeyed to San Francisco with John Schnell and his Japanese wife were in all likelihood the first group from Japan to arrive and settle in the United States. More information can be found at arconservancy.org/site/c.psKZL3PFLrF/b.5810915/k.5902/Wakamatsu_Tea_and_Silk_Colony_Farm.htm.
The Conservancy conducts regular public tours of the property, as well as private tours.
The film was produced by George Sabato and Gary Campbell of Sierra Community Access Television in El Dorado County, California. Eddie Ebacher was the videographer.
