El Marino Students Perform Tribute to Japanese Tsunami Victims

In the true spirit of language immersion, Sekiguchi Sensei helped her third-grade students perform a moving tribute Tuesday to the victims of the tsunami that ravaged Japan in early March.

Approximately 15 students had the opportunity to show off their Japanese language skills to the community at the board of education meeting.  Singing a song, playing recorders and holding up numbers to show the height of the tsunami, the number of people who died, are still missing, or living in shelters, the students communicated the facts of the natural distaster in both English and Japanese. At the end of their performance they bowed to the audience and to the board members, holding up Japanese and American flags and saying, “All our thoughts and feelings have become one.”

Part of the immersion experience, according to , is for students to connect with the culture of the language they’re learning. So when news broke of the tsunami in Japan, this neighborhood school’s students took immediate action.

El Marino teacher Alice Horiba called an emergency meeting of the K-5 student council right after the earthquake. Even though that year's service project had just begun, the students , choosing instead to fold 1,000 cranes. According to Japanese tradition, if you fold a thousand cranes, you can request a wish from the gods.

"I think they're supposed to bring them luck and I think they're very pretty," 8-year-old Sally Finnan had said in an earlier interview with Patch.com  

El Marino Elementary students sent the cranes, a banner, and $5,000 raised by the student council and $3,000 raised by parents and teachers to Japan, wishing the affected residents well.

Do you have pictures or video from the Tuesday night performance? Be sure to upload them by clicking the photograph to the right.