On Friday, November 18, JANM members brought a brown bag lunch and joined the museum’s collections staff for a look at the work of the late animator, TV producer, and film director Iwao Takamoto, who had a distinguished career at Disney and Hanna-Barbera, and two of his Japanese American peers who also worked in the Hollywood film industry: MGM art director Eddie Imazu and Disney animator Chris Ishii.
Below you will find a few photos highlighting the event, which was part of JANM’s Members Only Learning at Lunch series. If you are a current JANM member, watch for your December e-newsletter, which will include an exclusive link to JANM’s professionally produced video of the event. JANM members now get exclusive first-viewing privileges on selected JANM program videos; in the last two months, members have enjoyed advance access to a talk with Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and a World War II panel discussion with Five Nisei. The new video will include fascinating tidbits about the lives of the three artists, including a personal reminiscence from an audience member who knew Takamoto as a child.
Not a JANM member? Click here to purchase a membership for yourself or a loved one—gift memberships at the Family/Dual level are 20% off, now through the end of the year. And be sure to provide your email address so we can notify you of new videos available for viewing!
JANM Collections Manager Maggie Wetherbee holds up a limited edition Scooby-Doo print signed by Iwao Takamoto, Joe Barbera, and Bill Hanna.While at MGM, art director Eddie Imazu worked on an early movie about the renowned all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team called Go For Broke (1951). Here, we see casual snapshots he took of the actors while they were on set.This comic strip was done by Chris Ishii, another animator who worked at Disney, while he was incarcerated at Santa Anita assembly center. Li’l Neebo was his contribution to the Pacemaker, Santa Anita’s community newspaper. Ishii, who graduated from Chouinard School of Art (now California Institute of the Arts), was known for working on Dumbo and may have paved the way for Takamoto, who was a bit younger than he was.
Nunokawa Japanese garden in Occidental Center, Los Angeles, California, April 10, 1965.
Photo by Toyo Miyatake Studio. Japanese American National Museum,
Gift of the Alan Miyatake Family.
As the repository of more than 100,000 individual artifacts related to the Japanese American experience, JANM frequently receives requests from other museums and cultural centers to borrow rare and meaningful items for their exhibitions. We can’t accommodate every request but right now, there are two exhibitions currently featuring loaned artifacts from the JANM permanent collection—one in nearby La Cañada Flintridge and the other in Austin, Texas.
Descanso Gardens is located at the far western end of the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County. Among its many botanical treasures is a Japanese Garden, which celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year. In honor of the anniversary, the exhibition Sharing Culture | Creating Community charts the creation of the Japanese Garden, how it functions as a work of living art, how it transmits cultural ideas, and how it can act as a catalyst for building community.
Frank Nagata and bonsai class at Alpine Baika Bonsai Nursery, Los Angeles, California, 1964. Photo by Toyo Miyatake Studio. Japanese American National Museum,
Gift of the Alan Miyatake Family.
On view in the Sturt Haaga Gallery through January 29, 2017, Sharing Culture | Creating Community includes four photographs by Toyo Miyatake from the JANM collection. One depicts Frank Fusaji Nagata at his Alpine Baika Bonsai Nursery in Los Angeles in 1964. Nagata taught bonsai there and was one of the founders of the Southern California Bonsai Club, which became the California Bonsai Society. Another photo, taken in 1968, is from the Third Annual Bonsai Festival at Descanso Gardens. In it, a man examines a bonsai created by the Santa Anita Bonsai Society for the festival, while Mrs. Forrest Kresser “Judge” Smith, founding president of the Descanso Gardens Guild, and Mrs. Khan Komai, wife of the Society president, look on.
Also on loan from JANM is a photo of Eijiro and Eiichi Nunokawa of Garden Arts Landscaping in the Japanese garden they designed at the Occidental Center (now known as the AT&T Center) at 12th and Hill streets in Los Angeles. Eijiro Nonokawa also designed Descanso’s Japanese Garden. Lastly, a 1966 photo reveals the Japanese garden at Chavez Ravine. Located behind Dodger Stadium’s parking lot #6, the garden features a six-foot-tall toro (stone lantern)—a gift from Japanese sportswriter Sotaro Suzuki of the Yomiuri Shimbun of Tokyo.
George Hoshida, 12-5-43 – 7 PM at Amarillo, Texas. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of June Hoshida Honma, Sandra Hoshida, and Carole Hoshida Kanada. At the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, produced by the United States Holocaust Museum, is currently on display. The exhibition emphasizes why the issue of propaganda matters and inspires visitors to search for truth and work together for change. On the Texas Homefront is a companion exhibition curated by the Bullock that explores the effects of Nazi propaganda and events in Germany on Texas and Texans. Five artifacts from the JANM collection are included in On the Texas Homefront, representing first-person experiences in Texas by Japanese Americans who had been forcibly removed from their homes in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Four of these artifacts are drawings made by George Hoshida in 1942 and 1943. Hoshida was an artist and community leader in Hawai‘i when the US entered the war. Within days of the Pearl Harbor bombing he had been removed from his home and incarcerated. He documented camp life through drawings and paintings in notebooks he kept as he spent time in and moved among five different camps during the war.
Also loaned to the Bullock Museum is a postcard from JANM’s Clara Breed Collection. Breed was the children’s librarian at the San Diego Public Library from 1929 to 1945. She kept in touch with many of the Japanese American children and teenagers who had frequented the library even as they were forcibly removed to assembly centers and concentration camps.
George Hoshida, Fort Sam Houston Internment Camp, Texas. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of June Hoshida Honma, Sandra Hoshida, and Carole Hoshida Kanada.
The postcard on loan to the Bullock was written by Fusa Tsumagari during a train stopover in El Paso, Texas, on the way to the Crystal City Department of Justice camp. “We had a rather restless night due to the occasional jerking of the train. I feel fine but mother is a bit car sick. Pop will be waiting for us when we get there on Sunday, according to our escort,” it says toward the end, referring to being reuniting with her father.
State of Deception and On the Texas Homefront are on view through January 8, 2017.
Descanso Gardens is open every day but December 25. The Bullock Texas State History Museum is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Should you find yourself with a little time during this holiday season, please consider visiting one of these cultural institutions to which JANM has made loans.
Henry Sugimoto’s untitled painting from 1975 depicts the artist’s 1953 naturalization ceremony. Sugimoto is in the center, wearing the blue suit. Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Madeleine Sugimoto and Naomi Tagawa.
Now more than ever, immigration is at the forefront of American dialogue and debate. Join us this Saturday, November 19, as we host the National Conversation on Immigration: Barriers and Access, organized by the National Archives as part of a series of conversations commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. A full day of talks and panel discussions will look at past and present barriers to immigration, the real-life experiences of immigrants, and more. For a complete schedule and to register, click here.
The Bill of Rights is one of three documents considered fundamental to the founding and philosophy of the United States. The first, the Declaration of Independence, states the principles on which the American government is based. The second, the Constitution, served to unite America’s states and lay out the structure of the federal government. And finally, the Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the Constitution, spelling out the rights of individual citizens in relation to their government. Included are the right to free speech, the right to assemble and protest, the right to bear arms, and the right of the accused to a speedy trial with an impartial jury.
The National Conversation on Immigration is one of a series of conversations being held by the National Archives across the country to explore the complex issues around human and civil rights in the modern era. Rather than being set in stone, these ideas continue to evolve today. Past conversation topics have included Civil Rights and Individual Freedom, held in Atlanta; LGBTQ Human and Civil Rights, held in Chicago; and Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, held in New York. Click on the links to watch videos of the conversations and find links to relevant holdings in the National Archives.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s nonpartisan record keeper, preserving the important documents and materials that trace our country’s history. Established in 1934 by President Roosevelt, NARA’s holdings number in the millions and include slave ship manifests, the Emancipation Proclamation, journals of polar expeditions, photographs of Dust Bowl farmers, and treaties with Native Americans, among many other items. All are accessible to the public, and many can be viewed on NARA’s website.
The National Conversation on Immigration: Barriers and Access is presented in part by AT&T, Ford Foundation, Seedlings Foundation, Toyota, and the National Archives Foundation.
Come to JANM this Saturday for a taste of Samoa! To celebrate our exhibition, Tatau: Marks of Polynesia, the latest JANM Free Family Day will feature a variety of crafts and cultural activities that celebrate Polynesian culture and the art of tattoos. Included will be performances and workshops spotlighting the traditional dances of Samoa. Guests will have a chance to learn the basic steps of fa’ataupati (slap dance), siva (traditional dance), and the fire knife dance with trained performers. (Note: actual fire and knives will NOT be used.)
To give you a sense of what these dances are like, we’ve assembled a collection of YouTube videos below. Enjoy and see you Saturday!
On Friday and Saturday, November 11 and 12, JANM will be hosting the second annual Kollaboration EMPOWER Conference. Launched in 2015 by Kollaboration, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Asian and Pacific Islander Americans in creative industries, the EMPOWER conference offers a weekend of panel discussions, mentoring sessions, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities aimed at bringing together aspiring young artists and more established professionals. The conference’s goal is to bridge communities, generations, industries, and innovative minds.
To learn more about the conference and its origins, we interviewed Christine Minji Chang, Executive Director of Kollaboration.
JANM: Why the name “Kollaboration”?
Christine Minji Chang: Kollaboration has its roots in the Korean American community—it was founded by standup comedian Paul “PK” Kim in 2000 as a platform for aspiring Korean American artists to share their talents. (Fun fact—Ben Chung of the Kinjaz, formerly the Jabbawockeez, performance group was the one who coined our name.)
Over time, we expanded the organization and the movement to represent the pan-Asian American Pacific Islander community, but the name stuck. It still speaks on a larger level to what we stand for: empowering the AAPI community and improving diversity in media by working together—whether that’s across ethnicity, geographical region, cultural background, or artistic genre.
JANM: How did the EMPOWER Conference come about?
CMC: This conference was a long time coming and a very collective manifestation of ideas that grew over time through conversations between Kollaboration volunteers and artists. I personally started volunteering with Kollaboration San Francisco in 2009, and I remember dreaming out loud with my colleagues about creating an event where we could get advice from entertainment professionals—both for the artists that we supported in our shows and for ourselves as creative leaders who might not want to perform on a stage.
I had long dreamed of pursuing acting, but the whole idea had always been so daunting and obscure. How do I start? What do I prioritize? How do I talk to my family and friends about it? The media industry has always been an unknown universe for most AAPIs—it’s not explored or encouraged as much as medicine, law, or engineering.
So through multiple conversations, brainstorming sessions, and networking, our amazing Kollaboration Los Angeles team took the plunge in 2015 to pilot our first EMPOWER Conference. We got 40 entertainment professionals to volunteer to share their wisdom and insight with a small but passionate audience. I was completely blown away and humbled to see this idea come to life right before my eyes. It was an amazing team effort, and I’m very proud of what we’ve started for the AAPI community.
JANM: Describe the people that you feel should come to this conference.
CMC: I think this conference is accessible for almost all AAPIs who are just starting out and/or curious about working in the entertainment industry. They can get ground-zero insights into various aspects of different industries, and how to best pursue different paths. The conversations will range from how to utilize various programs and resources, to how to navigate emotional and mental journeys in a tough industry that’s just starting to prioritize diverse stories.
EMPOWER is also a place where seasoned professionals can come to network and get up to date on trends and technology in the entertainment and media industries, which are constantly evolving. We want this conference to be a gathering place for ambitious and creative minds to meet, build relationships, and expand their skill sets. We also want folks to be open to learning new things, not just from industry panels but from hands-on workshops that will make them jump out of their comfort zones and build confidence in public speaking, improv comedy, auditioning, and more.
JANM: Can you give us a few highlights or favorite moments from last year’s inaugural conference?
CMC: One highlight was having Bing Chen as our keynote speaker. He is extremely smart and charismatic and has been a force of nature not only for the AAPI creative community, but for the millennial generation as a whole. He founded the YouTube Partner Program, which revolutionized artistic expression and visibility for AAPI artists. Without that, who knows how long AAPIs would have continued to create art in obscurity or struggled to find outlets for their voices. Bing got up on stage and spoke candidly and passionately, holding nothing back; it was a great moment of inspiration for everyone present.
A favorite moment of mine came from Tamlyn Tomita during our keynote panel. Tamlyn has been navigating Hollywood for decades, and is a hero of mine for being such a talented actress who’s made a name for herself in an industry and society that has been neither kind nor concerned about her representation. She was very vulnerable and fiery, encouraging everyone in the audience to face their personal fears of rejection and challenge definitions of success. She spoke so strongly that she was brought to tears, and so was I. The emotion was palpable in the room, and we felt empowered by her belief in us.
There were so many great moments! Another occurred during our writing panel, which I wasn’t present for the entire time. Mike Golamco, then a writer for NBC, shared with me how a young woman confided in him that after hearing him speak that day, she finally dared to call herself a writer. I could see how much that meant to Mike, and it was very clear to both of us that there was a lot more that we could do with this event. I’m so excited for this second conference and to be honest, I’m already planning our third!
The second annual Kollaboration EMPOWER Conference will take place at JANM Friday–Saturday, November 11–12. For more information and to register, visit empower.kollaboration.org. For more information about the organization, visit kollaboration.org.
