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.
Bring the family to the Museum this Saturday, December 10th as we finish off the year by designing wrapping paper and making paper snowflakes to go with this chilly weather that we’ve had the past couple of days.
We’re big fans of origami here at the Museum so we’ll also be making origami hopping frogs. After you fold yours, have a contest with folded frogs made by other visitors to see how far they can hop.
If frogs aren’t your thing, we’ll also have an area for you to sharpen your origami skills making other fun things. Join us for these activities as well as Japanese gift wrapping workshops throughout the day. A full schedule can be found here.
As an added bonus, if you come on Saturday, you’ll have a chance to join artist Patrick Nagatani at 2:00 pm for a gallery tour of his exhibition Desire for Magic: Patrick Nagatani currently on view in the Museum’s Weingart Foundation Gallery.
Finishing off 2011, we look ahead to 2012 for another year of family fun, which we hope you’ll join us for. Our first event of the year is our big Oshogatsu New Year celebration on Sunday, January 8th. Bring the whole family as we celebrate the Year of the Dragon! [Check out the Oshogatsu Family Day schedule of activities >>]
Come back on February 11th for our next Target Free Family Saturday and then again on March 10th for Target Free Family Day as well as a celebration of the opening of our next exhibition Folding Paper: the Infinite Possibilities of Origami. See you soon!
When you walk into the museum now, one of the first things you notice as you enter the front doors to the Pavilion is a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. I pass by the car every day on the way to my office, and I always see visitors stopping to admire it.
Photo by Gary Ono
But why a Corvette in the Japanese American National Museum?
Untitled drawing (Stingray), Larry Shinoda. Pencil on paper. Gift of the Shinoda Family, Japanese American National Museum (2003.124.3).
Upstairs in the exhibition galleries, we also have a number of his original drawings and sketches of various other cars he designed like the Mako Shark concept car, and the Boss Mustang. There’s also a bunch of historic photos, trophies, and other memorabilia that were donated to the museum by his family after his passing in 1997.
I have to admit that I don’t know much about cars, but the aerodynamic sporty style is very cool to see, and his personal story is very interesting too. His father died when he was a young child. From early on, he was always interested in cars and in drawing. He and his family were incarcerated at Manzanar during WWII. After the war, he grew up in Southern California where he built and raced cars, leading to his work designing and building cars.
The Watase Media Arts Center created a video about Shinoda for the exhibition with interviews with his sister and a long-time good friend:
By the way…Shinoda didn’t just design cars. He also worked on pretty much anything that moves such as Roger Penske’s race trailers, motor homes, tractors, big rig trucks, and even the Goodyear Blimp logo. And for those who were wondering…no, he’s not related to the other famous Shinoda that we have featured at the museum!
One more bit of trivia…the wedding dress currently on display in our Common Ground exhibition was made by Larry Shinoda’s mother!
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.
