Category: Education

A collage of teachers participating in JANM's Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops.

Skip Spring Cleaning—Scrub Nothing With Us!

Guest Blogger Leave a comment

JANM’s Chair of the Board of Trustees, William T Fujioka, dives into the story of JANM’s Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops and the Museum’s vow to #ScrubNothing in reference to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Since 1985 JANM has been promoting understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. In April, JANM received a stark message from the National Endowment for the Humanities: “Due to a change in the Administration’s funding priorities, DOGE has made the decision to terminate NEH awards.”

Gone was $170,000 for JANM’s Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops. Gone was the opportunity to bring educators from throughout the United States to JANM, Little Tokyo, and the Manzanar concentration camp so they in turn could bring the lessons of Japanese American history into their classrooms. When JANM sounded the call for aid to save this program, you answered. When JANM lit the beacons to help educators carry these essential stories back to their students, you rode out into your communities to raise the funds.

Thanks to you, JANM raised $275,000 that not only support this summer’s Landmarks program and educator stipends but also support next summer’s workshops. An anonymous donor pledged $85,000 for the Landmarks workshops, which will cover the Museum’s costs to bring seventy-two teachers from twenty-eight states to Los Angeles to experience the program. Many generous donors pledged $5 to $50,000 to support teacher travel stipends and provide continuous support for the program.

The weeklong workshops will bring teachers from across the United States to JANM, Little Tokyo, and Manzanar National Historic Site to experience Japanese American history, hear from former incarcerees, and most importantly, bring those stories and lessons back to their classrooms. Over the past two years, JANM’s Landmarks workshops included more than one hundred teachers in thirty-one states, who in turn reached approximately 21,000 students.

But, there’s still more work that needs to be done.

Despite some of the most significant federal cuts to arts and humanities funding in contemporary history, we are unwavering in our mission—to tell the full story of the Japanese American community, both its struggles and triumphs. While many organizations have scrubbed their websites of references to diversity, equity, and inclusion, JANM vows to scrub nothing.

JANM is proud to be among the first institutions standing firmly and unapologetically in defense of truth and justice. In doing so, we proudly stand true to our mission and honor the legacy of generations who came before us.

Now, we’re asking you to stand up with us as we take a strong and vocal stance against these efforts to erase history, dismantle diversity, and criminalize vulnerable communities.

So skip that spring cleaning and #ScrubNothing with us! Read the latest JANM news, give a gift today to help us tell the full story of our community and check out the exciting Scrub Nothing merch from the JANM Store.

#ScrubNothing and Give a Gift Today

KCRW: JANM stands up against Trump’s anti-DEI efforts, honors past generations

LAist: As DOGE cuts hit SoCal cultural spaces and libraries, Little Tokyo museum fights to keep programs alive

Los Angeles Times: Japanese American National Museum takes a stand against DOGE cuts to NEH

ABC7 News: Little Tokyo’s JANM faces risks amid federal budget cuts

Artnet News: ‘Nobody’s Coming to Save Us’: How U.S. Museums Are Battling for Their Future Under Trump

Pacific Citizen: JANM: Defiance on Display in L.A.

Los Angeles Sentinel: National Japanese Museum Board Condemns Trump’s Attacks on Immigration, Civil Rights and DEI

The t-shirt that started the #ScrubNothing movement signed by William T Fujioka, chair of the JANM Board of Trustees. Photo by Doug Mukai.

Featured image: A collage of photographs from the JANM’s Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops.

Kristen Hayashi talking to teachers about the Little Tokyo postcard.

Summer of Learning in Little Tokyo

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

With fall right around the corner, we are reflecting on a great summer welcoming teachers from across the country to Little Tokyo to participate in weeklong Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops titled Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Landmarks of American History and Culture program brings K–12 educators to sites, areas, and regions of historic and cultural significance.

Lynn Yamazaki talks with teachers.
Teachers on a walking tour of Los Angeles's Little Tokyo.
Manzanar concentration camp
JANM volunteers Hal Keimi, June Berk, and Richard Murakami talk with teachers.

Image Gallery: Lynn Yamasaki, director of JANM’s Education unit, talks with educators. Educators on a tour of Little Tokyo. The site of the Manzanar concentration camp. Former incarcerees and JANM Volunteers Hal Keimi, June Berk, and Richard Murakami talk with teachers.

Teachers are some of our very favorite people and we were so pleased to welcome fifty-eight incredible educators selected from an applicant pool of over 150 to join us in Little Tokyo!

Collectively, they represented twenty-seven states and reach over 7,200 students each year.

In addition to sessions with JANM Education staff, participants learned from eighteen guest scholars, educators, and community members and gained an in-depth understanding of Japanese American history through the lens of Little Tokyo. Topics gave insight into the community throughout time and included immigration, prewar racism, Bronzeville, World War II incarceration, postwar activism, the redress and reparations movement, and present day issues facing Little Tokyo. This year, a powerful day was spent visiting Manzanar National Historic Site. Check out this short video to hear from some of the participants about their time spent at JANM!

We are grateful to the NEH and to all the teachers who traveled from near and far to join us. It was an inspiring and energizing program for our staff, volunteers, and community.

We are thrilled to share that JANM has received another Landmarks of American History and Culture grant to continue workshops again in 2025. Keep an eye on our website or join our education enewsletter to stay informed about the application period and process.

Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Teachers look at artifacts from JANM's collection.
Kristen Hayashi talking to teachers about the Little Tokyo postcard.
Former incarceree and JANM volunteer Hal Keimi talking with teachers.
Teachers listening to speakers during a workshop funded by the National Endowment for Humanities.

Image Gallery: Educators look at artifacts from JANM’s Collection. Kristen Hayashi, director of Collections Management and Access and curator, and Hal Keimi speak with educators. Karen Ishizuka, chief curator, moderates a panel with community members Mike Murase, Kathy Masaoka, and Mark Masaoka about Little Tokyo.

Educator Workshops—Now Accepting Applications!

Lynn Yamasaki 2 Comments

We are excited to share that JANM is currently accepting applications for Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations. These are week-long workshops for K–12 educators that are funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities as one of their Landmarks of American History and Culture educator workshops that focus on sites of historic and cultural significance. We are honored to be among the fourteen sites conducting Landmarks workshops in 2024. 

This program will examine history through the neighborhood of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California. The week-long workshop will be offered twice: June 24–28 and July 15–19, 2024.

During the course of the workshop, participants will be joined by scholars, educators, curators, and community historians to learn about this unique place and how it has evolved through history. This program will examine how Little Tokyo has been impacted by events and issues such as restrictive covenants, eminent domain, the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, the civil rights movement, and gentrification. With a focus on Japanese American history, we will consider the past’s relevance to present day issues of identity and preservation. A day trip to Manzanar National Historic Site will also be included.

A group of people in a classroom setting listening to a speaker
A panel of survivors of America’s concentration camps speak about their experiences.

We invite teachers from across the country to apply to the program. Join us in Los Angeles for an in-depth look at the Japanese American experience through the special neighborhood of Little Tokyo. 

Each participant will receive a $1,300 stipend after completing the workshop. This stipend is intended to help compensate participants for their time commitment and to defray the costs of participation in the workshop which may include expenses such as travel, housing, and meals. 

All application materials must be submitted no later than March 5, 2024. For more information, including how to apply visit janm.org/education/workshops/2024/neh 

A group of people posing for a photograph on a city sidewalk
Participants at a summer 2022 workshop on a walking tour of Little Tokyo.

JANM Hosts Teacher Workshops Exploring Little Tokyo

Lynn Yamasaki 8 Comments

During the last two weeks of July, JANM had a wonderful time welcoming over fifty teachers from eighteen states for Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations. These two week-long workshops were funded by a Landmarks of American History and Culture grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Grants are awarded to study topics and themes in K–12 humanities within sites, areas, or regions of historic and cultural significance.

Little Tokyo Historical Society President Michael Okamura with a group of teachers on a walking tour.

JANM examined Japanese American history through the lens of Little Tokyo by exploring how this historic cultural, residential, and business hub for the Southern California Japanese American community transformed over the course of its history. The workshop explored how historical events, legislation, and the community impact this landmark site and the people who are a part of it.

Teachers learned about immigration to the area and the establishment of Japanese stores, restaurants, religious, and cultural institutions in the early half of the 20th century, through the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, a period in which the neighborhood was known as Bronzeville and was home to African Americans from the Deep South who had arrived in Los Angeles seeking wartime employment. Post-war issues around resettlement, eminent domain, redress and reparations, and gentrification; and the present-day challenges and triumphs involved in preserving the history and culture of the area while moving the community forward were also examined.

This was great! The first person testimonies in particular will be something I [will] never forget, and I feel lucky that I get to bring those narratives to my students in the coming year.

—Participating teacher
June Berk and Sande Hashimoto share their memories of pre-war Little Tokyo.

In addition to showcasing the history of this neighborhood and the Japanese American community through JANM’s collection and exhibitions, we are grateful for the many perspectives contributed by scholars, community members, artists, activists, and educators. 

The teachers heard from speakers representing organizations including Little Tokyo Community Council, Little Tokyo Historical Society, Visual Communications, and Facing History and Ourselves; artists Dan Kwong,  Cog•nate Collective, and TT Takemoto; JANM scholars, educators, and visiting scholars, Dr. Hillary Jenks, and Dr. Mitchell Maki; and many JANM volunteers and community members who shared very impactful first-person experiences and reflections.

My knowledge of the Japanese American experience has grown tremendously and I feel more confident using language, accessing resources, and teaching about the incarceration as well as the resilience of the community then and now.

—Participating teacher
  • Kristen Hayashi, JANM’s Director of Collections Management and Access and Curator shares about the post-war Little Tokyo resettlement period.
  • Kristin Fukushima, Little Tokyo Community Council Managing Director discusses the present and future of Little Tokyo.
  • Kathy Masaoka and Mike Murase discuss post-war Asian American activism.
  • Dan Kwong and Junko Goda reading on stage at the Takeuchi Democracy Forum
    An updated version of director, writer, and artist Dan Kwong’s “Tales of Little Tokyo” was performed by Kwong and Junko Goda.

There are many threads that make up the very strong fabric of Little Tokyo and we learned so much from all the voices who offered their expertise and shared their experiences.

Teachers with JANM volunteers June Berk, Richard Murakami, and Mas Yamashita, who shared first-person experiences.

Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this workshop do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Announcing the launch of Virtual Visits to JANM!

Nina Nakao Leave a comment

February 2020—120 4th grade students in closely packed groups swarm into JANM’s Common Ground exhibition, shaking hands with JANM volunteers, and sharing pencils for origami and drumsticks for taiko. The field trip ends and the group grabs their bundle of backpacks and heads out into the cool spring air to enjoy a communal lunch on JANM’s plaza, and the Education staff heads into the back offices, another successful field trip. 

Little did the seasoned museum educators know that in a matter of days the school visits program would come to a complete halt. Swiftly, sending regretful emails postponing, and later canceling, over 100 reserved Spring semester visits. Teachers sent back kind replies, understanding the predicament as they themselves adjusted to unprecedented distance learning circumstances. 

Fast forward to six months later—after hours of strategizing, experimenting, adapting (and pivoting!), the JANM Education Unit is thrilled to announce our new virtual visits program. In the spirit of the beloved on-site school visits program, the new tour types reflect informal and object-based learning which animates the museum’s mission—promoting understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. 

Virtual visits use video conferencing technology to engage visitors and students in conversation and discussion surrounding JANM’s collection. Built on the understanding that it is important to learn outside of a formal classroom setting, virtual visits enhance distance learning curriculum with innovative and interactive design. These new tour types offer a great escape for a distance learning classroom, and a way to make sure that the important lessons of history are not forgotten. 

Lynn Yamasaki introduces students to Kaeru!

1st–12th grade students will enjoy “tours” full of fun, engaging, and artistic activities that broaden their understanding of culture. College, adult, and senior groups will have the opportunity to go on a virtual tour of the highlights of JANM’s on-going exhibition, Common Ground: The Heart of Community, led by JANM’s incredible cohort of volunteer docents and facilitators. Groups of all ages can select to accompany a visit with a first-person live testimonial and Q&A with a JANM volunteer who has first-person experience of America’s concentration camps. These precious stories are vital to bringing the curriculum alive for your students.

It’s important to continue telling stories about the Japanese American experience now more than ever. Teachers tell us the reasons why they bring JANM’s curriculum to their students include: bringing mindfulness to their virtual classrooms, learning to respect other cultures, gaining connection making skills, combating anti-Asian racism and hate that is prevalent in today’s media, and helping students take pride in their own culture by learning and appreciating another. As one teacher reported, “My students were engaged and quite interested in the presentation. They really enjoyed it and learned a lot.” 

With a virtual platform crafted to reach students, and engage sensory perception, critical thinking skills, and importantly make human connections in an era of social distancing, students experience a memorable and lasting museum “visit.” 

The JANM Education Unit offers school or group virtual visits Monday–Friday, running 45–65 minutes. Fees are waived for Title I schools thanks to generous support by Bid for Education donors. To learn more or make a reservation go to janm.org/groupvisits or email groupvisits@janm.org. 

Programs like these are made possible by the generous support of JANM’s members and donors. Become a member (janm.org/membership) or consider making a tax-deductible gift so that we can continue to develop more educational resources: janm.org/donatenow. Your support makes a difference. Thank you! 

JANM Opens Its Doors to Educators

Nina Nakao Leave a comment

Taking a class of students on a field trip can be an incredibly stressful process. Over the years, the Education Unit at JANM has fielded virtually every question imaginable from teachers who are dedicated to planning a museum visit for their classes. We know that teachers lead busy lives and spending countless hours in and outside of the classroom planning their visit and preparing their students.

There are so many variables leading up to the perfect field trip. Will the tour be conducive to my teaching strategy? What content does the documentary cover? Will my students have a chance to engage in hands on activities?

To answer these questions and more, on October 10th, JANM’s Education Unit is welcoming teachers to our Educator Open House! From 5 p.m.–8 p.m., the galleries will be open, admission will be free, and museum staff and volunteers will be available to answer questions, engage teachers, and promote JANM’s school visits program and educator resources.

Each year JANM welcomes thousands of students and teachers who are looking to not only learn Japanese American history, but to connect JANM’s content to present-day issues and events. In a tense and polarized political climate, JANM’s mission to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience has become exemplified through the school visits program. 

Photo by Tracy Kumono

We welcome educators with a range of wants and needs—from teachers who have a field trip coming up in the Spring of 2020, to teachers who are interested in booking a visit for the 2020–2021 academic year, to teachers who want to use JANM resources inside their classroom. The Education Unit at JANM believes in making the benefits of a visit to the museum accessible to everyone. For us, this not only means running our daily school visits program, but aiding and encouraging classes to use JANM’s self-guided materials, and organizing Digital Speakers Bureau calls between eager K–12 classes and JANM volunteers.

Throughout the evening, JANM’s Education Unit will lead informal workshops that give educators an inside look at all the offerings of the school visits program. Program demonstrations will span what we offer for grade 1 through grade 12. Teachers can learn what sets a Discovery Tour apart from a 1-hour guided tour, how we cultivate a deeper understanding of culture through interactive storytelling, the philosophy that guides our work, and where to plan on eating lunch on the day of their visit. Origami workshops will be held at 5:30 p.m. and again at 7 p.m.

At 6 p.m., make sure not to miss an introduction to JANM’s online educational materials including education websites Enemy Mail and Exploring America’s Concentration Camps. The documentaries Remembering Manzanar (2004) and 9066 to 9/11: America’s Concentration Camps, Then… and Now? (2004) will be screened on loop. 

Photo by Tracy Kumono 

This night will facilitate deeper communication and community between JANM educators and teachers who may be planning trips or looking to expand their in-class curriculum. 

And if you need even more reasons to stop by on Thursday evening, all attending educators will receive a 10% discount in the JANM Store and be automatically entered into a raffle!

Free! JANM’s Education Unit invites educators to drop in to visit current exhibitions, learn about our various tour options for your students, and enjoy light refreshments with colleagues as we welcome the new school year.

Bid for Education, Supporting Students and Educators

Sohayla Pagano Leave a comment
Photo by Tracy Kumono

If you’ve visited JANM on a weekday morning, chances are you’ve witnessed our onsite School Visits Program in action. Every Tuesday through Friday, JANM opens its doors early to offer specially-designed tours and activities for K-12 school groups from across the greater Los Angeles area. Some of the best learning opportunities happen outside the classroom; here at JANM, and we aim to give students a once-in-a-lifetime learning experience to explore more of the world through a field trip we hope they’ll never forget!

Securing funding is sometimes the biggest obstacle for schools to pursue these experiences and activities. At JANM, many of the student groups we welcome are only able to visit the museum due to our Bid for Education program. The program provides bus transportation and museum admission for primary and secondary school students from Title I schools and groups who have demonstrated financial need. The late US Senator Daniel K. Inouye launched Bid for Education at JANM’s Gala Dinner in 2000, in reaction to budget cuts at the state level that threatened to take away bus transportation for field trips. Since its inception, Bid for Education has provided field trips to over 12,000 primary and secondary school students and teachers every year.

Recently a 12th-grade student told a volunteer docent, “Thank you for speaking to my class during our trip to the Japanese American National Museum. It was a special experience to hear from an actual camp survivor, definitely something not everyone can experience. While it was a great experience, I’m very sorry that you had that story to tell. But I feel very honored to have been able to listen to it. It was definitely a memorable experience that I will never forget.”

Photo by Tracy Kumono

The Bid for Education program has grown to include support for K–12 educator workshops, the development of free resources for educators, docent recruitment and training, and many other educational initiatives. Going beyond the doors of JANM, the program helps expand the horizons of students across the country through the museum’s teacher training programs and web-based resources. Through these ongoing educational initiatives, the museum continues its commitment to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience with classrooms on a nationwide scale.

Please think about supporting the Bid for Education. The program receives much of its funding during the annual Gala Dinner, which this year is taking place on April 13. However, donations can be made at any time online. We greatly appreciate your contribution of any size.

Breaking the Fast with #VigilantLOVE

Sohayla Pagano 1 Comment

On May 24, 2018, the Japanese American National Museum was honored to support and participate in the #VigilantLOVE 3rd Annual Bridging Communities Iftar—the evening meal that breaks each day’s fast during Ramadan—held at the Centenary United Methodist Church. As a new staff member in the Education Unit at JANM, I was excited to attend the event with a few colleagues to learn more about #VigilantLOVE and the Little Tokyo community.

Place setting at the #VigilantLOVE iftar.

According to its website, #VigilantLOVE is a healing and arts-driven organization that counters mainstream narratives of insularity, building upon the legacy of Muslim American and Japanese American solidarity since 9/11. As someone new not only to JANM, but also to Los Angeles and the West Coast, this solidarity is one that I was not aware of until starting at the museum. But it is one that makes perfect sense when considering the shared commitments to fighting against hate, battling racism, and standing up for constitutional rights that again seem imperiled in our country.

Already in my short time at JANM, seemingly disparate aspects of my identity, both personal and professional, have converged in unexpected and exciting ways. I was raised Muslim, and by my own choice wore the hijab from grade three through my first semester of college. I have fasted for Ramadan in the past, but it has been many years since I have attended a community Iftar event. I never would have thought that my professional work, at a Japanese American organization no less, would have provided the opportunity for me to connect with this part of myself again.

The event itself was also a very unique mix of elements, from speakers to poetry reading to reflective breaths of gratitude to fundraising. In learning a little more about #VigilantLOVE, the confluence of these, again, seemingly disparate elements fit perfectly into their organizing model, which “integrates grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, political education, the arts, and healing practices within the culture of everything we do.”

Origami note containing words to make poetry.

My favorite part of the night was the short collective poetry activity attendees were invited to participate in. Since I’m an educator, perhaps this is not too surprising but I loved that everyone was invited to collaboratively create something with the others at their table. Each table had a small gold or silver origami envelope containing various cut-out words; our job was to create a haiku using words from our envelope. Our JANM table struggled a bit (we needed to make sure the number of syllables in each line was correct!), but eventually came up with this:

side by side building

wakeful unshakeable friends

create strengthen home

Our poem, and the night as a whole, reminded me of the importance of community—of friends —in building the world we want to see. Despite mainstream rhetoric of insularity and isolationism, where people focus on the issues that divide us, this event helped us to remember the beauty of the multicultural, multifaceted world in which we live.

Collaborative haiku.

 

New JANM Web Resource Explores America’s Concentration Camps

Allyson Nakamoto 1 Comment

Photograph. Japanese American National Museum. Gift of George Teruo Esaki.

The Japanese American National Museum recently launched a new web resource, Exploring America’s Concentration Camps. Like our core exhibition, Common Ground: The Heart of Community, which provides a key educational experience for 15,000 students and teachers every year, EACC showcases photographs, letters, artwork, oral histories, and moving images from our permanent collection. We selected and digitized artifacts from all 10 War Relocation Authority (WRA) camps and organized them thematically for this new website. Our goal is to share our collection widely with students and teachers around the nation to help them learn more about the Japanese American World War II experience.

The above photo of a group of women making mochi in the Gila River camp in Arizona has a handwritten caption: “New Years a comin’.” At around the same time in Utah’s Topaz camp, artist Hisako Hibi painted two stacked pieces of mochi topped with a small citrus, a symbol of hope for a healthy and prosperous new year. On the back of her painting, Hibi wrote, “Hisako Hibi. Jan 1943 at Topaz. Japanese without mochi (pounded sweet rice) is no New Year! It was very sad oshogatsu. So, I painted okazari mochi in the internment camp.” These artifacts, like many others in JANM’s permanent collection, speak to how important it was for those in camp to find ways to maintain their traditions, despite being incarcerated in harsh environments far from home.

Hisako Hibi, Untitled (New Year’s Mochi), circa 1943, oil on canvas.
Japanese American National Museum. Gift of Ibuki Hibi Lee.

Other artifacts speak to the idea of security. For example, this badge and identification card are from the collection of Norio Mitsuoka, the inmate who would become the fire chief at Idaho’s Minidoka camp. The WRA created and ran camp entities like fire departments to ensure standard protections for the Japanese American prisoners. Such artifacts not only give viewers a deeper understanding of camp life, but they also surface broader questions about security, both physical and psychological.

Badge. Japanese American National Museum. Gift of Norio Mitsuoka.

Identification card, 1945. Japanese American National Museum. Gift of Norio Mitsuoka.

A handmade chest of drawers, meanwhile, illustrates the dignity with which the Japanese Americans endured the camps. The collection of Frank S. Emi, who is perhaps best known for his leadership in the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, offers us a glimpse at another skill he possessed: furniture making. In an oral history interview for JANM, he shared what the furniture meant to him:

I built this chest of drawers from scrap lumber in the fall of 1942 while incarcerated at the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, concentration camp. The barracks were bare except for a potbelly stove and a single light bulb dangling from the roof. I had also built a vanity with a 36-inch mirror (purchased from a mail order catalog), which was my pride and joy.

Chest of Drawers. Japanese American National Museum. Gift of Frank S. Emi.

Photograph. Japanese American National Museum. Gift of Frank S. Emi.

Exploring America’s Concentration Camps was produced with major funding from the National Park Service’s Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) grant program. JANM is currently at work on several other JACS-funded projects, including the digitization of rare home movies; a traveling display of artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection, which will premiere at JANM on January 7, 2018; and another website that revolves around one family’s story of being separated after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the hardships they endured throughout the war.

A shortened version of this article was published in the fall 2017 issue of Inspire, the magazine for members of JANM.

JANM Works with Metro and Boyle Heights High School Students to Create Construction Phase Artworks for the Bunker Hill Neighborhood

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Decorative banners created by the students of Boyle Heights High School can now be seen on Hope Street between 2nd and 3rd in downtown Los Angeles. All photos courtesy of the author.

The Japanese American National Museum was honored to be chosen by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Metro Art Program to participate in the design of decorative banners to cover the Regional Connector Transit Project construction site. Over a year in the making, the banners can now be seen on Hope Street between 2nd and 3rd, just around the corner from The Broad.

JANM was commissioned by Metro to identify professional artists to mentor local high school students in creating the artwork for the banners. We chose the wonderful Ako Castuera and Edwin Ushiro, both of whom have exhibited their work at JANM, to work with an excellent group of students at Boyle Heights High School.

Led by Steve Brye, students from Boyle Heights High school
take a walking tour of the Bunker Hill neighborhood.

Students were first asked to learn about the history and iconography of the neighborhood so they could incorporate it into their art. We took a walking tour of Bunker Hill, during which the students documented the area with sketches and photographs. The tour was led by Metro’s Senior Transportation Planner Steve Brye, who is a longtime resident of Bunker Hill. Students then reviewed their own images as well as some historical photographs, and came up with imagery that was inspired by Bunker Hill past and present. Ushiro worked to compile their artwork into larger pieces for the banners.

The students go through the photographs they took while on their tour.

During the course of this project, JANM staff had the opportunity to visit the students at their school in our neighboring community of Boyle Heights and the students came to visit us here in Little Tokyo as they created art inspired by Bunker Hill. I can’t help but think how great it is that we’re in Los Angeles, where so many diverse and interesting communities can intersect to create something that makes our city a little brighter. The next time you’re in the Bunker Hill area, be sure to check out the work of the students from Boyle Heights High School!

Thank you to Metro, the students of Boyle Heights High School, Principal Leigh Ann Orr, Ako Castuera, and Edwin Ushiro. We had a great time working with you all!

More about the Regional Connector Transit Project: metro.net/projects/connector
More about the Metro Art Program: metro.net/art