The 7th-Annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar

The 7th-Annual

Los Angeles

Archives Bazaar

Saturday, October 27, 2012
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Doheny Memorial Library
USC University Park Campus

Los Angeles history comes alive at the 7th-annual Los Angeles Archives Bazaar. Organized by L.A. as Subject and presented by the USC Libraries, the annual event celebrates the diversity of Southern California’s history. For scholarly researchers, journalists, history buffs, and those simply interested in exploring the stories of Los Angeles, discovery awaits everyone at the Archives Bazaar. This event is free and open to the public.

The Archives Bazaar draws its strength from the breadth and variety of its participants’ collections. Large institutions such as the Autry National Center of the American West and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County will be represented at the bazaar along with smaller organizations and private collections whose materials fill the gaps left in the city’s official history. Other participating organizations include the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the California African American Museum, El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, and the Japanese American National Museum. In all, more than 70 archives are expected to be represented.

The USC Libraries serve as the host institution for L.A. as Subject, an alliance of libraries, museums, and other archival and cultural organizations. The relationship complements the USC libraries’ strong Regional History Collection and is a natural outgrowth of the libraries’ efforts to preserve and expand access to the primary sources of L.A. history.

Archives Bazaar website: http://www.laassubject.org/index.php/archives_bazaar

Afton Dill Nance Papers Online

I am happy to announce that we have completed the Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP) to digitize the Afton Dill Nance Papers and the images are now online!

In 2011, the National Museum was awarded the LHDRP grant to digitize this special collection of letters. Nance, who was a teacher in Palos Verdes during the outbreak of WWII, saved letters from her students, parents, and individuals who shared their thoughts of leaving Palos Verdes, their incarceration and their adjustment of life after camp.

Please check the Online Archives of California (OAC) and Calisphere websites to view this collection:

OAC—Click the Online items available link to view itemsOnline items available

Calisphere

An additional 100 images will soon be added to these two sites!

Afton Dill Nance
Letter from Shigeo Motoike to Afton Nance. 1942 May 6

Join us at the 2013 National Conference

Join us…

July 4-7, 2013 at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity Our expanded Web site has launched and we’re so excited! Check out the sessions and activities being planned for JANM’s fourth national conference. A multigenerational, multicultural audience of over 1,000 attendees is expected for this not-to-be-missed community gathering. And, save time and money with our NEW online registration—JANM members save up to 35% with our Early Bird registration. Be sure to share the newswith your family and friends. See you in Seattle!

Participants at our 2008 conference in Denver.
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!

Poston Mothers (and others)

The Poston Community Alliance is in the process of locating mothers who were interned at the Poston internment camp and their descendants for a documentary that they are producing called For the Sake of the Children.

Marlene Shigekawa, Producer, and the Director, Joe Fox met with Dr. G.W. Kimura, President & CEO of JANM, about a month ago. Dr. Kimura was intrigued by the approach of this film, which will in part tell the story of the interment through the eyes of the mothers who tried and succeeded, despite much hardship and tragedy, to give their children a sense of normalcy through this dark period of our collective history.  Additionally, this documentary will show the impact that the Poston internment camp experiences had on subsequent generations.

Joe and Marlene will be at JANM on Monday, September 24th and invite members of our community to come and meet with them. In particular, they are looking to speak to mothers who gave birth while at Poston and/or were raising small children (up to the age of 10) while in camp. They would like to speak with Nisei, Sansei, Yonsei and Gosei whose mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers or great-great grandmothers were interned at Poston.

There will be no filming done at JANM.   Rather Joe and Marlene just want to hear about your experiences.  They will be in the Education Center at 10:00 am and at 2:00 pm that day and look forward to seeing you.

This is a very important project, which JANM very much supports.  To view their work in progress go to:  www.flywall.com/poston-mothers-7-minute-edit

For more information you may contact Marlene Shigekawa at  postonalliance1@gmail.com or 510 290-1944.

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

Giant Robot Biennale 3 exhibition site is online!

The opening of Giant Robot Biennale 3 is coming up next weekend!

And we just launched the special exhibition site with information about the upcoming Giant Robot Biennale 3!

Check it out for info about the exhibition, video, artist bios, related public programs, audio tour, and more:

janm.org/grb3

We’ll be adding more artist images and other goodies in the next few weeks.

We also have an interview with GRB3 curator Eric Nakamura on our Discover Nikkei website: Giant Robot Biennale 3: Behind the Scenes with GR’s Eric Nakamura

 

If you’re in the Los Angeles area (or will be next weekend), be sure to join us next Saturday night for the GRB3 Opening Party!

GRB3 Opening Party
Saturday, September 22
6PM – 10PM
FREE!

Celebrate the exhibition opening with curator Eric Nakamura, GRB3 artists, and a performance by Money Mark!

 


 

We also recently just added a few new Giant Robot items to our online store!

Check out the new Giant Robot /JANM logo t-shirt and the Giant Robot Big Boss Figures set on janmstore.com.

Giant Robot Biennale 3 — Opening Party on Sept 22nd

 Giant Robot is returning to JANM!

GRB3 Opening Party
Saturday, September 22
6PM – 10PM
FREE!

Giant Robot Biennale 3 opens with a party on Saturday, September 22.

Join us as we celebrate the exhibition opening with curator Eric Nakamura, GRB3 artists, and a performance by Money Mark!

The third show in conjunction with Eric Nakamura, owner of Asian American pop culture juggernaut Giant Robot. Giant Robot Biennale 3 will feature a gallery of eight emerging artists along with a customized vinyl figure collection.

Following two previous successful exhibitions at the National Museum, the Biennale continues to push the envelope with a creative, fresh, and uniquely interactive experience. This year’s exhibition highlights the works of Rob Sato, Deth P. Sun, Ako Castuera, Eishi Takaoka, Saelee Oh, Sean Chao, Albert Reyes, and Zach Gage.

Using figures designed by Uglydoll creator David Horvath, Nakamura curated Project Remix, a custom vinyl show with over 80 artists from seven countries—including the rare combination of both established customizers and fine artists.

Special additions to the exhibition include an original piece from Japanese painter Masakatsu Sashie as well as arcade machines running Jeni Yang and Beau Blyth’s new indie video game, Catburger.

Check janm.org/grb3 for more info about the exhibition and related programs.

1 month left to submit your Nikkei food story for Itadakimasu!

There’s just 1 month left until the deadline to submit your Nikkei food story for our Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei Culture project!

Itadakimasu! A Taste of Nikkei Culture

Please join us and share your favorite food stories on Discover Nikkei!

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.

The deadline to submit stories to be included in Itadakimasu! is September 30, 2012 at 6pm (PST).

See submission guidelines & check out the stories published so far: http://5dn.org/itadakimasu

 

Since our last update, we’ve published 4 more Itadakimasu stories online with more waiting to be published:

Hiraoka Ranch. Fowler, CA
Erik Matsunaga’s story about JA enchiladas in “Farm Food”
 
Janice D. Tanaka’s shares about how her Maryknoll classmate took her on a Little Tokyo food adventure in “Elsie Kikuchi’s J-Town”

The Odyssey is another humorous Itadakimasu story by Rachel Yamaguchi about how her father led their family on a “quest” to find a Japanese restaurant he remembered from the “old days” when traveling through Fresno, CA.

Read all 14 Itadakimasu stories >>