Category: News & Announcements

JANM member appreciation reception in San Diego!

Esther Shin Leave a comment

Reception

First stop: New York. Second stop: San Francisco. Our next stop: San Diego!

JANM will be coming to San Diego, California to host a Member & Donor Appreciation Reception on March 12! 

Without our Members and Donors, JANM would not be able to provide the programs and services, year-round, to hundreds of thousands of local, national, and international visitors.

Through the generous support of Members and Donors, the Museum has been able to continue its tradition of excellence in producing exhibitions, public programs, publications, and educations materials to preserve, interpret, and share the experiences of Japanese Americans.

We are grateful for your support, and we welcome this opportunity to meet you and show our gratitude. Please join us!

SD_Reception

When: 
Wednesday, March 12, 2014

6:30PM: Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres
7:30PM: Program

Where:
Cooley, LLP
4401 Eastgate Mall
San Diego, CA 92121

RSVP: Wednesday, March 5 to Alison Wong 213.830.5657 or memberevents@janm.org

*****

Join/renew your membership now. In addition to supporting the work and mission of the Japanese American National Museum, you also receive free admission; free or discounted rates for public programs, workshops, and conferences; 10% off at our award-winning Museum Store; invitations to special member events like these; and more!

Photo Credits: E. Shin, Cooley LLP 

JANM Member Appreciation Receptions in NYC and SF!

Esther Shin Leave a comment

Reception

Without our Members and Donors, JANM would not be able to provide the programs and services, year-round, to hundreds of thousands of local, national, and international visitors.

To show our gratitude, JANM will be hosting a Member & Donor Appreciation Reception in both San Francisco, California, and New York, New York!

Through the generous support of Members and Donors the Museum has been able to continue its tradition of excellence in producing exhibitions, public programs, publications, and educations materials to preserve, interpret, and share the experiences of Japanese Americans.

We are grateful for your support, and we welcome this opportunity to meet you. Please join us!

Daruma LLC

NEW YORK

Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Time:
6:30PM Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres
7:30PM Program

Where:
Daruma Capital Management, LLC
80 W 40th St, 9th Floor
New York, NY, 10018

RSVP: Wednesday, February 19 to Alison Wong at 213. 830.5657 or memberevents@janm.org

 

Bay Bridge

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SAN FRANCISCO

Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Time:
6:30PM Cocktails and Hors d’oeuvres
7:30PM Program

Where:
The St. Francis Yacht Club
On the Marina
San Francisco, CA 94123

RSVP: Tuesday, February 25 to Alison Wong at 213. 830.5657 or memberevents@janm.org

* * * * *

Photo Credits: “View from Daruma Capital Management, LLC.” – Cassidy Cruz; “Golden Gate Bridge at Night” – davemmphotography.com 

Target FREE Family Saturday: Aloha from Hawaii with KoAloha Ukulele on February 8

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda 1 Comment

KAERU_ALOHA2014

KoAloha Ukulele is coming from Hawaii on Saturday, February 8 to lead performances, workshops, crafts, and all things ukulele at our next Target Free Family Saturday. It’s FREE all day!

Bring your own ukulele to learn basic and intermediate ukulele with Brian Benevente of KoAloha Ukulele and other KoAloha artist partners (11:15am/12:15pm/1:15pm/2:15pm). The little ones will enjoy strum-along and sing-along workshops with George “Gibi” del Barrio as “Abba Geebz” (Grandpa Geebz) at 11:30am, 12:45pm, and 1:45pm. If you don’t have your own ukulele, Anacapa Ukulele will be on-site selling instruments!

There will be solo performances by spectacular ukulele performers Tj Mayeshiro, Jason Arimoto, and Ryo Montgomery at 11:30am, 1pm, and 2:30pm. Plus an All-Star jam finale at 3:30pm with all three performers.

Plus, screenings of award-winning films: My KoAloha Story at 11:30am and The Haumana at 1:30pm; make your own candy leis; send an aloha to someone special by making a valentine with a bit of a Hawaiian touch; and fold an origami Hawaiian canoe.

For complete schedule, visit janm.org/target.

Video of TJ Mayeshiro and Ryo Montgomery performing in Korea:

 

Video of Jason Arimoto performing “Kaze Blues,” an original blues ukulele song about the Japanese picture bride experience in Hawaii in the early 1900s:

Target Free Family Saturday: Ukulele fun & Valentine crafts!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

Feb target crafts

Aloha! Are you ready? It’s the first Target Free Family Saturday of 2014 and we are excited to see you!!

On Saturday, January 8th from 11am – 4pm, we’ll be celebrating Hawaii with KoAloha Ukulele, who will be leading performances, workshops, crafts, and all things ukulele…and it’s all FREE! (If you have an ukulele, be sure to bring it to join in the fun.)

A full schedule for the day can be found here.

Not only is Hawaii on our minds, but, we’re also thinking about Valentine’s Day which is right around the corner. All kids can come and think sweet thoughts as they construct a candy lei. We will also have a variety of supplies available for you to make Valentine cards. It’s going to be a fun one so we hope you can join us!

 

 

Fred #KorematsuDay 2014

Allyson Nakamoto Leave a comment
IMG_6784
Karen Korematsu (right) visited JANM and worked with a group from a local high school. Photo by Richard M. Murakami.

 

January 30 is the birthday of the late Fred Korematsu and it is also Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and Social Justice!

Over the past few years, we have had a chance to get to know his daughter, Karen Korematsu, who has taken on the role of Co-Founder and now Executive Director of the Korematsu Institute, whose mission is to advance pan-ethnic civil and human rights through education.

Karen is joining with others to spread the word about her father’s story. As a young man, Mr. Korematsu purposely disobeyed the government’s 1942 order that excluded all people of Japanese ancestry, without due process, from the West Coast. He was arrested and eventually removed to a Japanese American concentration camp in Utah. He appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in 1944 the Court ruled against him, declaring that the exclusion and confinement of people of Japanese descent was justified. It wasn’t until 1983 that his conviction was finally overturned. (Here is a link to his full bio.)

For teachers who are planning to commemorate Mr. Korematsu’s stand for civil liberties, we’ve put together a few links to FREE resources that we hope might be helpful to you:

• A neat opportunity for teachers to hear Karen Korematsu speak as part of UC Berkeley’s “Movement, Militarization, and Mobilization: The Bay Area Home Front in WWII” NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop—deadline to apply is 3/4/2014.

• A link to order Korematsu Institute curriculum

• A series of short videos and powerpoint presentations commemorating Fred Korematsu, courtesy of the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

• Lesson plan to conduct a Korematsu Mock Trial with high school students, courtesy of Mark Hansen, a fantastic Texas teacher.

Happy Fred Korematsu Day!

 

It’s a National Youth Summit webcast! Join us!

Lynn Yamasaki Leave a comment

We are so excited about our upcoming participation in a National Youth Summit with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and 10 other Smithsonian Affiliate organizations across the country.

On February 5, 2014 students from around the country will participate in a live webcast originating from The Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Mississippi. The program will reflect on the 1964 youth-led effort for voting rights and education known as Freedom Summer and will include a panel of activists, experts, and scholars.

Tamio Wakayama Photo: Tracy Kumono
Tamio Wakayama
Photo: Tracy Kumono

Following the webcast, JANM will have our own on-site program. Tamio Wakayama, a Nisei Japanese Canadian who joined the American Civil Rights Movement as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), will share his experiences and the documentary photographs that he took from 1963 to 1964.

Now, here’s the great part: all youth and educators are invited to participate from their classrooms through the magic of the web! Teachers… this means you! Just take a look at this fantastic site for the program.

The Smithsonian has provided teaching resources and other tools for you and your students. You can pre-register and join in the conversation along with us and view the program streaming live from the Old Capitol Museum.

Register online now >>

 

Awkward ‘n’ Awesome Rock ‘n’ Roll Movie THE CRUMBLES screening at JANM on Sat Jan 25!

Akira Boch Leave a comment

crumbles still

THE CRUMBLES is an indie rock slice-of-life tragicomedy about Darla and Elisa, two young women struggling to catapult their talented but directionless garage band to stardom. Called “elegant and affectionate” by the LA Times, this lighthearted romp across the east side of Los Angeles offers a fun and realistic portrait of what it’s like to be in a fledgling band. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2012 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Directed by Akira Boch and featuring music by Grammy winner Quetzal Flores.

Cast and Crew will be in attendance.

This is a FREE EVENT!

When: SATURDAY, JANUARY 25 @ 7pm

Where: Tateuchi Democracy Forum
Japanese American National Museum
111 N. Central Ave., LA, CA 90012

Sponsored by the Japanese American National Museum

FREE BEER reception to follow, sponsored by Lagunitas Brewing Company

Afterparty at Wolf & Crane in Little Tokyo starts at 10pm

More info: thecrumbles.com

Check out The Crumbles on Facebook

The Crumbles @ JANM Sat. Jan 25

A/P/A Institute at NYU & JANM celebrate the publication of Franklin Odo’s “Voices from the Canefields”

cchurch Leave a comment

FranklinOdo-VoicesfromtheCaneFieldsThrough the poetic lyrics of over 200 holehole bushi (Japanese folksongs), Franklin Odo (Founding Director, Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Pacific American Program) traces the experiences of Japanese immigrant plantation sugar workers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in his new book Voices from the Canefields: Folksongs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai‘i.

Wednesday, January 22 will be a night of celebration as we join NYU’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute in marking the publication of Dr. Odo’s latest book with a selection of readings, song, and film.

Where: A/P/A Institute at NYU  This event takes place in New York City.

When: January 22, 2014, 6:30 PM

RSVP by Monday, January 20

RSVP + Details

Co-sponsored by the Japanese American Association of New York, Japanese American National Museum, and Hālāwai.

Read JANM’s October 2013 interview with Dr. Franklin Odo on Discover Nikkei >>

Estelle Ishigo Drawing from JANM Collection Featured in National Constitution Center Exhibition

Collections Management & Access Leave a comment
Ishigo-500px
Estelle Ishigo’s drawing All In One Room, as it was prepared by Collections Staff for travel to the National Constitution Center

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is currently featuring the drawing All In One Room by Estelle Ishigo in their permanent exhibition The Story of We, the People.  The drawing will be on display through November of 2014.

Estelle Peck Ishigo (1899-1990) is most well known as an artist who chronicled the experience at the Heart Mountain concentration camp.

Estelle Peck was born in Oakland in 1899 to parents of English, Dutch, French ancestry.  Her family moved to Los Angeles and Estelle attended the Otis Art Institute, where she met Arthur Ishigo (1902-1957), a San Francisco-born Nisei who was working as a chauffeur for California Lieutenant Governor Robert Kenny.  As anti-miscegenation laws at the time prohibited interracial couples from getting married, Peck and Ishigo took a trip across the border to Tijuana to be wed in 1928. Hoping for a career as an actor, Arthur worked as a janitor at Paramount Studios while Estelle worked as an art teacher.  Shunned by her family, the couple lived among the Japanese American community.

Estelle Ishigo (Gift of Mary Ruth Blackburn, Japanese American National Museum [2000.103.12])
Gift of Mary Ruth Blackburn, Japanese American National Museum [2000.103.12].
With the outbreak of World War II and the removal of all West Coast Japanese Americans to inland concentration camps, the couple faced a dilemma. As a Nisei, Arthur was required to be removed while his wife was not. Though he wanted her to stay behind, she accompanied her husband, first to the Pomona Assembly Center in California, and then to Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Throughout the war years, Estelle drew, sketched, and painted what she saw, providing a valuable document of life in the American concentration camps. “Strange as it may sound, in this desolate, lonely place I felt accepted for the first time in my life,” she later wrote of her time at Heart Mountain. She and her husband remained at Heart Mountain in order to record the last days of the camp until it was officially closed. The Ishigos were given $25 and put on a train to the West Coast. “I felt as if I were part of a defeated Indian tribe,” she remembered later.

In 1990, filmmaker Steven Okazaki made a documentary of Estelle Ishigo’s life titled Days of Waiting. Estelle passed away before seeing the film, which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Estelle Ishigo’s story and drawings comprise an important aspect of the permanent collection at the National Museum. The Estelle Ishigo Collection can be seen on the Museum’s website at:  janm.org/collections/estelle-ishigo-collection

Learn more about Estelle Ishigo on our Discover Nikkei website >>

Submitted by Margaret Zachow Wetherbee, Collections Manager

Osechi-ryori Tasting at JANM’s Oshogatsu Festival!

Esther Shin Leave a comment
3 girls enjoying zaru soba at the 2013 Oshogatsu Family Festival
Young guests trying zaru soba at the 2013 Oshogatsu Family Festival

Celebrate the New Year with special New Year’s foods at the 2014 Oshogatsu Family Festival on Sunday, January 5th. It’s FREE all day from 11AM to 5PM!

Guests can learn how to make onigiri and submit their creative rice balls in an Onigiri Design Contest; Kidding around the Kitchen will provide the ingredients to make some lucky zaru soba (buckwheat noodles); and there will a mochitsuki demonstration by Kodama Taiko, where free samples will be handed out after each performance.

Not only is food a major component of JANM’s Oshogatsu Family Festival, but it is also a major component of traditional Japanese New Year celebrations. That’s why JANM has organized an Osechi-ryori tasting for the festival! Osechi-ryori are traditional Japanese New Year foods. The dishes that make up osechi each have a special meaning celebrating the New Year. Learn more about these dishes, and try them out for yourself at the festival!

There will be a general Osechi-ryori tasting from 12PM – 1PM, followed by a Members Gourmet Osechi-ryori tasting from 1PM – 2PM, which will be for JANM members only. Remember to get in line early because the tasting will only last as long as supplies last!

Stay tuned for more blog posts covering the special activities planned for Oshogatsu Family Festival!

Visit the Oshogatsu Family Festival page for the full schedule >>

Not a current member? Join/renew now >>