And I’m letting my Chinese side take over here so this won’t seem like a belated New Year’s greeting!
Well, I’m off to the New York Gift Show this weekend and I’m hoping to find new and exciting things there. For many of my vendors this is the only time we get to meet in person. I know that the world has changed and we are all getting used to shopping online (and believe me, I’m glad you do shop online!) but sometimes I just have to see stuff in real life to be assured that it is of good enough quality to offer to all of you.
New York is also a great place to check out other museum stores and see what’s happening on the other side of the country.
If I can get my technology to cooperate, I will try and post photos of some of the people that make and sell the items you have come to love in our store!
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!
If you’d like a taste of what is in the exhibition, all of the Drawing the Line artist videos are online now. You can check them out on our YouTube channel.
Together with a group of guest musicians and activists from the 1960s/‘70s and the present, Miyamoto brings alive the dynamic moment when her 1973 album “A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle of Asians in America,” created a heartbeat for the Asian American Movement and shared rhythms with Black, Latino, and Native American cultural and political activists.
General admission is $10, students is $5, and it’s FREE for members of JANM and LACE! Tickets available at the door.
One last Drawing the Line update! We asked Yoshimi Kawashima (a former intern and current JANM volunteer!) to write an article about Gidra magazine for our Discover Nikkei site. Yoshimi is a current UCLA student active with the Nikkei Student Union (NSU), so thought she’d appreciate the assignment. We think she did a great job! GIDRA: The Voice of the Asian American Movement
Update (added 1/20/12): We’ve pulled together a Nikkei Album on our Discover Nikkei site with all of the Drawing the Line videos with brief summaries of each video. Check it out >>
Alright east coast friends, this weekend is your last chance to go take a look at our traveling exhibition Fighting for Democracy: Who is the “We” in “We the People?” in Philadelphia before it closes January 16th at the wonderful National Constitution Center. It’s been exciting to know that these stories have been shared with the great people in the city of brotherly love. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll want to head on over soon!
Now it’s time to hit the road again. Next stop: The Arab American National Museum. I’m getting my winter coat ready as we take the exhibition to Dearborn, Michigan! Fighting for Democracy opens there on February 2nd so if you’re in the area, we expect to see you there!
In 1942 a young man named Fred Korematsu refused to be forcibly removed from the West Coast to incarceration camps with 120,000 other Japanese Americans. He was arrested and convicted of defying the presidential order, but appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, the conviction was upheld and validated the denial of constitutional rights of Japanese Americans for “military necessity.” In 1983, Fred’s case was re-opened and his conviction was overturned. Fred continued to advocate for justice and civil liberties for all for the reminder of his life.
For the whole story, visit the National Museum! On to our program.
Last year, January 30th officially became Fred Korematsu Day, the first day in US history named after an Asian American. We had an event last year in commemoration and decided to program a little something on December 16th in preparation for 2012.
We were so happy to have with us Karen Korematsu, Fred’s daughter and founder of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute as well as students from Rancho Dominguez High, Duarte High and Mendez Learning Center.
We had a great group of kids who were thoughtful, courteous, critical thinkers and conscientious. And not to mention the great teachers that ensured they were all of the above.
We were able to preview some of the great educational material coming out of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute as well as hear from Karen herself. After the students were able to create a dialogue with their classmates, ask questions and create posters to bring back to their respective schools.
Aw, it’s like dear old dad is smiling down on his daughter.
They also had guided visits from our stellar docents.
Special thanks to the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education, Los Angeles County Office of Education, California Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools & Constitutional Rights Foundation and the Alameda County Office of Education. And more big thank you to Tracy Kumono for her wonderful photographs!
Look out for a recording of the event courtesy of LACOE coming soon!
There’s just 5 days left to go check out the traveling version of our popular kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa exhibition at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland, OR before it closes on Saturday, December 31!
The exhibition was originally on display at JANM in 2006 and has since traveled to New York; Chapel Hill, NC; and Chicago before its current stop in Portland.
Exhibit hours at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center are Tuesday – Saturday 11 am to 3 pm, Sundays noon to 3 pm. Suggested donation for admission is $3 (free for Friends of Oregon Nikkei Endowment).
Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center
121 NW 2nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97209 Directions
Throughout the year, there is a dedicated group of Museum volunteers who take photographs of our various events, exhibitions, artifacts, and more.
Richard Murakami -- the fearless leader of our volunteer photographers corps!
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!
I like to document our photographers documenting our events. I take them on my camera phone so please forgive the quality. Photo of Daryl Kobayashi & Nobuyuki Okada at the "Drawing the Line" exhibition opening on October 15, 2011.
Visitors to the museum often remark that what made their experience so special was getting to hear and talk to our volunteer docents. They share stories with our visitors that bring the artifacts in our Common Ground: The Heart of Community to life.
An ongoing project at the museum has been for our staff & interns in the Watase Media Arts Center, curatorial, and education units to work with some of our volunteers to develop 30 second (approximately) short videos talking about their favorite artifacts from Common Ground. The project is part of an ongoing effort to examine and re-envision the role the Museum and our volunteers will play in the 21st Century.
This is a wonderful project to record and share the stories especially of some of our older long-time Nisei volunteers while they’re still active at the museum.
We’re now up to 25 volunteer videos online. The most common artifact selected is the Heart Mountain barracks which makes an appearance in 3 videos. Although most are World War II-related, several are about pre-war Issei and Nisei life. While many are very poignant, some are humorous, like Marion Wada’s selection of a Hershey’s chocolate tin which recalls fond memories of childhood prior to WWII.
For those connected with the museum or have gone on tours here, you’ll recognize a lot of very familiar and dear faces. I’ve included a few of the more recent videos here, but you can view all of the videos from our Discover Nikkei website or on YouTube. Which ones are your favorites?
We’d like to thank the participating volunteers for sharing their personal stories: Ike Hatchimonji, Charlene Takahashi, Icy Hasama, Marion Wada, Mary Karatsu, Hitoshi Sameshima, Bill Shishima, Nancee Iketani, Ben Tonooka, Pat Ishida, Bob Uragami, Babe Karasawa, Yae Aihara, Richard Murakami, Yoko Horimoto, Jim Tanaka, Tohru Isobe, Mas Yamashita, Robert Moriguchi, Kathryn Madara, Kent Hori, May Porter, Eileen Sakamoto, Lee Hayashi, and Roy Sakamoto.
Funding for the Nisei Oral History project was provided by grants from the National Park Service and the California State Library through the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program.
Support for volunteer programming was generously provided, in part, by Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., The William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. The internships were provided through the Summer 2010 Getty Grants Program for Multicultural Undergraduate Internships to Los Angeles Area Museums & Visual Arts Organizations.
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.
Back in November, JANM was honored to host wagashi* master, Chikara Mizukami from Tokyo, for his first Los Angeles visit. This special occasion began in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum where Mizukami sensei and our favorite food writer, Sonoko Sakai, discussed the over 1,400 year art of wagashi making including its inspiration from nature, Japanese poetry, and even modern day architecture.
After the lecture, we moved to a classroom for an intimate hands-on workshop. The sold out workshop was filled with excited participants—one student had traveled all the way from Minnesota to attend this rare event (Smart man!). We learned how to create two confections out of the sweetened bean paste made from both white and red azuki beans. No rice was used in this school of wagashi.
It was a bit of a struggle to make the wagashi look remotely like sensei’s samples (see photos). Our own Vicky Murakami-Tsuda’s husband Russel T. had a lot of potential—to become an apprentice. Sensei mentioned that the maximum apprenticeship would last four years. Hmmm, something to ponder.
Sensei's SamplesThe Apprentice's
After all that hard work, we were rewarded with bowls of lightly frothy matcha to drink, complimenting our wagashi creations. Delicious!
Being able to take lessons from Mizukami sensei was a privilege and incredibly special. But the other details from the workshop were wonderful as well. I can’t tell you how beautiful everything was—the various samples of wagashi from Mizukami sensei’s Tokyo shop, Ikkoan; the simple wooden tools used to shape the confections; the big bowls filled with that intensely green matcha; and Sonoko’s simple yet gorgeous autumnal display of leaves and branches. What a wonderful experience. Hopefully, Mizukami sensei will return to JANM, and we will have the privilege of hosting him again. I know it would be another sold out event!
Sensei's Inspiration?
*Wagashi is a traditional Japanese confectionary, usually offered with hot tea and made of azuki beans and other plant-based ingredients.
