To let you know how busy things are here at the Museum, I totally forgot that yesterday was the last day for the Stan Sakai Labbit auction. Imagine my surprise to get an email from eBay notifying us that Stan’s Labbit sold for over $1500! Stan has graciously donated the proceeds of this sale to the Museum, and for that we are grateful. We are also proud to have helped Stan participate in his first custom toy show!
Category: News & Announcements
Thanks to our volunteer photographers!
Throughout the year, there is a dedicated group of Museum volunteers who take photographs of our various events, exhibitions, artifacts, and more.
Led by volunteer extraordinaire Richard Murakami, these volunteers make sure that our events & exhibitions are well documented for posterity and promotion. Their photographs are used in our publications, ads, online, reports,funding proposals, and a variety of other ways big and small.
Our volunteer photographers include professionals, as well as a range of amateurs. Although their photography experience and equipment may vary, we really appreciate all of their dedication and enthusiasm.
The current roster of volunteer photographers include:
June Aoki, Caroline Jung, Russell Kitagawa, Daryl Kobayashi, Tracy Kumono, Richard Murakami, Nobuyuki Okada, Gary Ono, Tsuneo Takasugi, Ben Tonooka, Richard Watanabe. Other contributors: Hal Keimi.
These volunteers literally take thousands of photos each year. We thank them for their hard work and look forward to their pictures in 2012!
Two-Day Shibori Class in Jan 2012
To all you crafters and artists out there, JANM will be presenting our first two-day indigo dyeing workshop with Shibori Girl on the weekend of January 21 & 22, 2012. Glennis aka Shibori Girl, has a jammed pack itinerary scheduled – talk about an immersion program.
If you have taken any of our past shibori classes with the Glennis, you know that this is a fantastic dream come true. These workshops are for all levels so dive in if you have always wanted to learn more about shibori. You can call it a holiday present to yourself.
Check out our Calendar of Events for all the details.
http://www.janm.org/events/2012/01/#21
Save the Date: 2012 Gala Dinner
We’ve already begun planning for next year’s Gala Dinner!
The 2012 Gala Dinner is set for Saturday, May 5. We’ll be back at the JW Mariott Hotel at L.A. Live.
Our staff is currently working to finalize ticket & sponsorship opportunities, so stay tuned for more info.
In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. will once again be providing a Lexus for our Lexus Opportunity Drawing! This time, you’ll be able to win an all-new 2013 Lexus GS 450h hybrid!
The model is being redesigned for 2013. For those who know something about cars (not me!), it’s the world’s first premium performance sedan to be equipped with a V6 Atkinson cycle gas engine and two-motor hybrid system, in a front engine rear-wheel drive vehicle.
For a chance to win, tickets are $25 each, or 5 for $100 (buy 4, get 1 free!). For details, download the flier/form below.
Download the Opportunity Drawing form (PDF) >>
Documenting Manzanar
We recently finished posting a wonderful essay about the documentation of Manzanar during World War II by Nancy Matsumoto on our Discover Nikkei website. It’s quite an extensive piece which we posted in 18 parts. There’s also great historic photographs that accompany each part.
Documenting Manzanar
By Nancy Matsumoto
Read the essay >>
The article focuses especially on three photographers—Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Toyo Miyatake, but also about the documentation of Manzanar in art and in books by artists and authors like Miné Okubo, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, and Michi Weglyn.
It also examines various books and exhibitions, including the Ansel Adams exhibition here at JANM. It also references Two Views of Manzanar, an exhibition and book created by graduate students in the UCLA Fine Arts Program in the late 1970s. One of the students was Patrick Nagatani, whose works will be on display here in a retrospective exhibition opening next weekend.
As I’m writing this, I realize that we have something in our collections, exhibitions, and projects related to pretty much all of these things I’ve mentioned. We’ve just released the Farewell to Manzanar DVD based on the book & screenplay written by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband. Our collections staff is currently working on a project to conserve & digitize Miné Okubo’s original drawings from Citizen 13660 (generously
supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “We The People” project), and we have original design sketches by Michi Weglyn from her days as a costume designer in New York.
These types of realizations tend to happen often. That’s one of the great things about working at the museum so long…getting to see how different aspects of our history and culture fit together. It also goes to show how inter-related the Japanese American community is!
“Farewell to Manzanar” screening with Director John Korty!
Our Farewell to Manzanar screening is coming up this Sunday! The special guest will be Director John Korty who will participate in a Q&A following the screening.
One of our volunteers recently interviewed the award-winning director for our Discover Nikkei website about how he got into filmmaking, and about making Farewell to Manzanar into a film.
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If you haven’t already purchased tickets for this special screening, here’s the info:
Farewell to Manzanar screening
Japanese American National Museum
Sunday, October 23, 2011 • 2pm
Join Director John Korty for a Q&A following the screening!
$25 Members; $30 non-members, includes admission and a complimentary copy of the DVD.
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If you can’t make it to the screening, you can also order copies of the DVD from the Museum Store. The DVD includes bonus features: the Remembering Manzanar documentary created for the Manzanar National Historic Site; and an interview with Jeanne Wakatasuki Houston from when she was honored at the Museum’s 2006 Gala Dinner.
Volunteer Docent Sergio Holguin
For many people who visit the Museum, the highlight of their visit is often getting a tour from one of our many dedicated volunteer docents. Many of our docents share their own or their family’s first-hand experiences from World War II. However, as our older Nisei volunteers have slowed down a bit, the demand for docents is being increasingly met by those whose families were not incarcerated in America’s concentration camps.
Although their experiences aren’t first-hand, their being there to share the Japanese American experience with our visitors is very important, and in some ways may even help non-JA visitor relate more with the stories.
One of our younger docents is Sergio Holguin, a computer science major at Cal Poly Pomona. Sergio is a third-generation Mexican American. He recently wrote a wonderful article for our Discover Nikkei website that shares how he became interested in Japanese American history, and why he decided to volunteer at the Museum.
Nisei? Sansei? No, I’m just a Gakusei
By Sergio Holguin
Read his article >>
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P.S. Here’s a 2009 article on Discover Nikkei about another non-JA Museum docent—Nahan Gluck:
NEW! How to do your own oral history interview tutorial on Discover Nikkei
Have you ever wanted to record the history of your grandparents, your parents, or other people in your life?
In 2009, Cole Kawana was a sixth grader at Seven Arrows School. His assignment was to do a service-learning project, and so with the help of his extended family, he conducted an oral history interview with his great-uncle, Arthur Ichiro Murakami, who is a Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor.
In addition to the oral history, he decided to create a video tutorial so that he could teach and encourage his fellow students to try it for themselves.
His video tutorial was shown as part of Xploration Lab this past spring. It’s now also on the Museum’s Discover Nikkei website.
We’ve split the tutorial up into segments, with each one going over different steps in the process, including equipment, preparation, conducting the interview, and follow-up.
In addition to Cole’s tutorial video clips, we’ve added a downloadable checklist and sample release form. We’re also working on sample questions and translating everything into the other site languages (Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese).
At the end of the page, you can view the interview that Cole conducted with his great-uncle, plus links to additional online oral history resources.
Check out the tutorial on Discover Nikkei >>
Many thanks to Cole and his family for letting us share his video! Thanks to Sam Arbizo, Esther Newman, Yoko Nishimura, and Geoff Jost for working to get the tutorial online!
“Farewell to Manzanar” release on DVD
After 35 years, Farewell to Manzanar will FINALLY be available for people to buy!
In 1976, the made-for-TV movie was shown on NBC, directed by John Korty from a screenplay written by the original authors of the book—Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband James D. Houston. It was a film made for a mainstream audience using Japanese American actors and many crew, something that is still pretty unheard of today.
There were several reasons why it was never re-broadcast, and only rarely shown after its initial viewing. It was also never made available for sale for the public, despite constant requests from the community, as well as from many educators who use the book in their classrooms as part of their curriculum.
Personally, I’m really excited about the release on DVD because I’ve never actually seen it. I do remember reading it in junior high school for a class assignment, and I’ve heard about the film version so many times. I used to work in the Museum’s Store for many years, and one of the most consistent (and persistent) questions I got year after year was whether we had it for sale. I’m so glad that I can now finally say “Yes!”
FAREWELL TO MANZANAR SCREENING
The Museum is doing a special screening of Farewell to Manzanar on Sunday, October 23 at 2pm in the Democracy Forum. Join special guests for a screening and Q&A. Tickets are $25 for Members or $30 for non-members, and includes Museum admission and a complimentary copy of the DVD. Purchase tickets for the screening >>
You can also order the DVD from the Museum Store >>
LEARN MORE
We asked Esther Newman, one of our volunteer writers, to write a series of articles about the film for our Discover Nikkei website. The first one was published today: Farewell to Manzanar on DVD—Timeless and Timely
Additional pieces will look at director John Korty and the actors in the film.
The Last Labbit Auction!
And it starts in just a few minutes. I have to stay online long enough to have it go live so I can post the links. Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo Labbit made an appearance on the back cover of Stan’s 199th comic book issue, so I imagine the bidding will be fierce for this piece. The Year of the Labbit show is over but Stan’s Labbit is still on view in the Museum Store.
There are still some fine Labbits available on janmstore.com, but they are going fast. We sold 6 more after the show was over!
Oh and Save the Date: Stan Sakai will be at the Museum for a booksigning on October 30. Check our web site for details: janm.org