Senator Inouye on the Civil Liberties Act of 1988

 

In 2008, the Museum celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. At our Gala Dinner that year, one of the key players that we recognized who helped turn what was considered an impossible dream into reality was Senator Inouye, who suggested the creation of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) in 1979 as a stepping stone to enabling a successful redress bill to pass through Congress. He also helped to turn redress payments for Japanese Americans into an entitlement, keeping it from the difficult annual budget process.

In our member magazine that year, we published a special edition commemorating the anniversary. Fittingly, it was the inaugural issue for our new member magazine format called inspire.

It included this message from Senator Inouye:

Today, as I consider the significance of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, I first reflect on the important moment when President Reagan signed the bill into law on August 10, 1988. At that moment, it had been more than 46 years since President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, leading to the displacement of thousands of people of Jpaanese ancestry and their unconstitutional imprisonment by the U.S. government.

In so many of these individuals, treated unfairly solely because of their ethnic origin, there was a remarkable spirit, an incredible determination, and an unshakable belief that they, too, were Americans. We saw this in the actions of Japanese American soldiers who volunteered from behind barbed wire and gave their lives in hopes that their familiies, held prisoner by their own government, would one day share the promise of America. I have said before—and it bears repeating—that I have often asked myself if I would have volunteered for military service under these circumstances, and in all honesty, I cannot give you a forthright answer.

So when President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which authorized an official apology and token reparations to thousands of persons of Japanese ancestry, it was our government’s belated acknowledgment that what had been done during World War II was wrong and that the spirit held by so many Japanese Americans at the time had been vindicated. As I said back in 1988, Americans of Japanese ancestry now know in their hearts that the letter and the spirit of our Constitution hold true for them. We honor ourselves and we honor America. America demonstrated to the world that we are a strong people, strong enough to admit when we are wrong.

Today there are similar challenges facing our government and our country. We would be wise to look back at the historical importance of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and what it means to our Constitution and to all Americans. The passage of this law required the dedication and hard work of thousands of individuals. It required that individuals with no direct or political interest understand its relevance to our way of life, and it required that they do what was right. In challenging times like today, such an example is one that we should strive to emulate. If we do, Americans will once again show the world and ourselves that the United States is truly a great country.

 Watch video clips from a 2001 interview with Senator Inouye >>

Gift ideas for family & friends who don’t need another tchotchke…

2nd graders from Mt Washington visit JANM. Photo by Gary Ono.

Looking for a meaningful gift for the holidays?

Here are 3 gift ideas that don’t require standing in line at the mall, wrapping, or shipping.

Plus, as an added bonus, you’ll be supporting the work of an important organization whose mission is to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience!

1) Gift Membership

Give the gift of membership!

Give the gift of membership! Your recipient will receive free admission to the Museum, 10% off at our award-winning Museum Store and at janmstore.com, inspire member magazine, and more!

For a complete listing of benefits >>

2) Children’s Courtyard Gift

Since the Pavilion building opened in 1999, the National Museum has honored its youngest supporters with a special Children’s Courtyard engraving. These Courtyard Kids ensure the Museum’s connection with each new generation. Give the gift that shares the Japanese American story and inspires a lifetime of discovery!

Guidelines for Inscription >>

3) Tribute Gifts

A Living Tribute marking a joyous occasion or a Memorial Gift honoring a loved one helps sustain and expand the programs and further the goals of the Museum. Your Honoree or the family of a Memorial Honoree will receive a letter from the National Museum acknowledging your contribution.

Make a donation in honor of a friend or loved one >>

Help us continue our work…make a gift today!

Stan Sakai, JA Santa, & GRB3 artists workshop this Saturday!

This Saturday will be another busy day at JANM! We’ll have 3 great reasons to visit us with your friends & family.

  • 11am – 2pm: Take a Picture with Japanese American Santa
    Japanese American Santa is coming to town! Take home a special holiday photo.
Usagi Yojimbo books available at the Museum Store!
  • 12pm – 2pm: Stan Sakai Book Signing
    Stan Sakai returns to JANM! Signed Usagi Yojimbo books make great holiday gifts. The Museum Store will have copies of his two latest books for sale—Usagi Yojimbo #26: Traitors of the Earth & 47 Ronin (signing books only)
  • 2pm – 4pm: Giant Robot Artists’ Entourage Workshop with Albert Reyes & Saelee Oh
    Come make art with Albert Reyes and Saelee Oh from Giant Robot Biennale 3 in this hands-on workshop. Immerse yourself in a variety of techniques and styles.

Here’s a description of what Saelee Oh has planned:

Open Love Letter to the Universe: We will be creating lots of artwork together! You can make portraits of your spirit animals, make artwork as an amulet for healing and protection for yourself and to give out to others and to illustrate our wishes for our world to be a better place.

Saelee Oh installation in "Giant Robot Biennale 3"

 

All three events are free with Museum admission (if you’re a member, that means it’s all free!). While you’re here, be sure to check out the Giant Robot Biennale 3 exhibition (closes January 20, 2013).

If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping, find meaningful & fun cultural gifts at our award-winning Museum Store. We have many more items—including one-of-a-kind ceramics, jewelry, and art pieces—than what is available online at janmstore.com.

“kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa” travels to Houston, TX

Our kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa exhibition is now on view at the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston, TX through April 14, 2013.

Organized by the Museum with award-winning filmmaker and artist Kip Fulbeck, the exhibition features portraits of part Asian individuals taken by Kip, along with their handwritten statements in response to the frequently asked question, “What are you?”

The popular exhibition was on display here at JANM from June 8 through October 29, 2006 and has since traveled to New York, NY (2008); Chapel Hill, NC (2009); Chicago, IL (2010); and Portland, OR (2011).

For more information about the Houston presentation, visit Asia Society Texas’ website >>

We’re very excited that it’s going to Houston where it will be on display paired with the Smithsonian’s Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter exhibition which will be coming to JANM in May.

Happy Halloween from JANM!

Happy Halloween!

Here’s a 1955 photograph from the Museum’s archives! It’s a publicity photo promoting the Hollywood JACL’s Halloween dance that was taken by the Toyo Miyatake Studio for The Rafu Shimpo. The women pictured are president Miwa Yamamoto and Hatsie Matoba.

Holllywood JACL Halloween dance, publicity photo, October 24, 1955 (96.267.302). Photograph by Toyo Miyatake Studio, Gift of the Alan Miyatake Family.

 

The photo is one of over 9,500 negatives and photographs that are part of the Toyo Miyatake Studio/Rafu Shimpo Collection at the Museum. A selection of 1,131 photos are available online.

Fighting For Democracy: Who is the "We" in "We, the People"?

Fighting For Democracy travels to Neillsville, WI

Our Fighting for Democracy: Who is the “We” in “We, the People”? exhibition is traveling next to the Highground Veterans Memorial Park in Neillsville, WI from November 1 through December 31, 2012.

Fighting For Democracy: Who is the "We" in "We, the People"?

The exhibition presents the diverse perspectives of seven ordinary citizens whose lives and communities were forever changed by World War II. It asks visitors to think critically about freedom, history, and, ultimately, the ongoing struggle to live democratically in a diverse America.

The Highground is the 9th venue for this traveling exhibition. The mission of The Highground is to honor Veterans and their families and to educate about the cost of things—the human cost. The Highground is a Veterans Memorial Park that pays tribute to the Dead, and honors the Survivors, their service, and their sacrifices. It also pays tribute to the people who supported them when they were away and upon their return.

Highground Veterans Memorial Park
W7031 Ridge Road
Neillsville, WI 54456

For more information about this presentation, contact 715.743.4224, or visit thehighground.org.

For more information about the exhibition and a listing of other venues, to explore an online version, or to download the accompanying Educator’s Resource Guide, visit ncdemocracy.org.

Fighting for Democracy is presented by the Highground Veterans Memorial Park in partnership with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, an educational program of the Japanese American National Museum, to advance the understanding of, and commitment to, American democratic ideals. The Los Angeles exhibition and traveling version are funded in part by the U.S. Army Center of Military History. The traveling exhibition ten-city tour has been made possible through the generous support of The Boeing Company.

Folding Paper travels to New Hampshire!

If you missed the Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami exhibition when it was here at JANM earlier this year, there will be opportunities to catch the amazing origami pieces as the exhibition travels.

Richard Sweeney, 03M (Partial Shell), 2010. Watercolor paper, wet folded. Photo © Richard Sweeney.

Folding Paper just opened at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College in Keene, NH. It will be on display through December 9, 2012. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Gallery Hours:
Sunday-Wednesday: noon – 5pm
Thursday & Friday: noon – 7pm
Saturday: noon – 8pm

www.keene.edu/tsag

From there, it will go next to the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI from January 26 – April 7, 2013. Future venues are the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA), Oregon Historical Society (Portland, OR), Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL), Bellevue Arts Museum (Bellevue, WA), Center for the Arts of Bonita Springs (Bonita Springs, FL), Brigham Young University Museum of Art (Provo, UT), and the Boise Art Museum (Boise, ID).

Check International Arts & Artists’ website for more info on the tour schedule and dates >>

Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami

The Folding Paper exhibition catalogue is still available from the Museum Store. Will make a great gift for an origami or art enthusiast!

Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami ($24.95)

 

Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei Culture

5 days left to submit Nikkei food stories!

Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei Culture
http://5dn.org/itadakimasu

There’s just 5 days left to submit your Nikkei food stories for our special Discover Nikkei Itadakimasu before the September 30, 2012 deadline! We’ve been receiving more stories this week as the deadline approaches.

English, Spanish, and Portuguese articles should be about 600–1,200 words. Japanese articles should be about 800 to 1,800 characters. Full submission guidelines are available online: http://5dn.org/itadakimasu

All stories that meet our guidelines will be published on DiscoverNikkei.org. Plus, our editorial committee will be selecting their favorite stories to feature and to be translated into all of our site languages (English, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese). Selected stories will be printed in our partner Nikkei publications.

Deadline to submit stories for Itadakimasu! is September 30, 2012 at 6pm (PST).

Since our last update last week, we’ve published a couple more Itadakimasu stories online, including our first Spanish story!

Eri Kameyama's shares about her family's temaki parties to welcome them to Japan in "Temaki Zushi: A Welcome-Home Party"

 

Roberto Hirose writes about Chilean Japanese food in "Sushi y Vino"

 

Read all 20 Itadakimasu stories >>

Japanese American National Museum - Summer Festival on the Courtyard medals

JA Sports Trivia Questions

I recently received a request to share on the JANM Blog some of the JA sports trivia questions we came up with for our JA Trivia Challenge at the Summer Festival on the Courtyard last month.

Japanese American National Museum - Summer Festival on the Courtyard medalsI’ve actually been posting them to our JANM Facebook page, but I realize not everyone is on Facebook, and sometimes it’s hard to find older posts, so I’ll go ahead and start posting them here as well.

We weren’t sure how many questions we would need, so Yoko Nishimura & I prepared a lot of extras, thanks to help from Brian Niiya (he now works for Densho, but many years ago worked at JANM and was the curator for our More Than a Game: Sport in the Japanese American Community exhibition in 2000); Dean Adachi, Gann Matsuda (he covers the LA Kings, but also blogs for the Manzanar Committee), Randy Imoto (JANM Store Coordinator & baseball fan), Sandra Gavreau (JANM member & Discover Nikkei helper!), and JANM volunteers Richard Murakami and Roy Sakamoto. A lot of the information came from research from the More Than a Game exhibition and from our Discover Nikkei website.

So…without further ado, here’s the first set of trivia questions. Sorry, I don’t have any prizes to offer. This is just for fun!

 

Japanese American Sports Trivia

1) Which Japanese American figure skater won the sixth season of “Dancing with the Stars?”

a. Apolo Ohno
b. Mirai Nagasu
c. Kristi Yamaguchi
d.  Kyoko Ina

 

2) Which of the following Japanese American athletes has not won an Olympic Gold Medal?

a)    Kristi Yamaguchi
b)    Apolo Oho
c)    Kyla Ross
d)    Wat Misaka

 

3) Wally Kaname Yonamine was inducted in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990. What sport did he play professionally in the US?

a)    baseball
b)    basketball
c)    football
d)    soccer

 

I’ll try to do a new blog post every week with the answers from the previous post, and then more questions. Or…I may wait until someone is able to add a comment with the correct answers, so answer away!

Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei Culture

2 weeks left to submit Nikkei food stories!

Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei CultureThere’s just 2 weeks left before the September 30, 2012 deadline to submit your Nikkei food stories for our special Discover Nikkei Itadakimasu!

You don’t have to be a professional or aspiring writer to participate. The most important thing is that you share your story and be included.

English, Spanish, and Portuguese articles should be about 600–1,200 words. Japanese articles should be about 800 to 1,800 characters. The full submission guidelines are available online: http://5dn.org/itadakimasu

All stories that meet our guidelines will be published on our DiscoverNikkei.org website. Plus, our editorial committee will be selecting their favorite stories to feature, translate into all of our site languages (English, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese), and selected stories will be printed on our partner Nikkei publications.

Deadline to submit stories for Itadakimasu! is September 30, 2012 at 6pm (PST).

 

Since our last update a couple of weeks ago, we’ve published 3 more Itadakimasu stories online with more waiting to be published:

Mochi and Me by Ben Arikawa

Food for Life: Nice Rice by Gil Asakawa

ブラジルのおかきと“ウメボシ” by Naomi Kimura (in Japanese & Portuguese)

Read all 17 Itadakimasu stories >>

Ben Arikawa reveals a shocking confession about his mochi tastes

 

Naomi Kimura's story about okaki and umeboshi in Brazil