Tag: sports

2014 Gala Dinner Thanks!

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda Leave a comment
Jamie Hagiya, Wat Misaka, and Natalie Nakase at the 2014 Gala Dinner. Photo by Tracy Kumono.
Jamie Hagiya, Wat Misaka, and Natalie Nakase at the 2014 Gala Dinner, Silent Auction & After Party. Photo by Tracy Kumono.

 

Thank you to everyone who supported our 2014 Gala Dinner, Silent Auction & After Party on April 12!

The Gala is our biggest fundraising event of the year, and the funds raised allow us to continue the important work that we do. To the many people who attended the Gala, donated and bid on silent auction gifts, purchased Lexus Opportunity Drawing tickets, made Bid For Education gifts and more, we extend our deepest gratitude for your support.

One of our photographers, Tracy Kumono, produced a short slide show of the evening’s highlights, which she has graciously allowed us to share with you.

View the slideshow >>

She also has the complete set of Gala photos (more than 650) on her website, and you can order individual prints from her directly. You will need to provide your name and email address to enter the gallery and order prints.

View more photos and order prints >>

In addition, we are pleased to announce that the winner of this year’s Lexus Opportunity Drawing is Craig Tomiyoshi of Huntington Beach, California. He will pick up his brand new 2015 Lexus RC F in the fall.

We are interested in hearing your comments about the evening. If you’d like to share your thoughts, please send an email to galadinner@janm.org.

Once again, thank you for your support. We hope to see you next year!

 

Photos by Tracy Kumono, Nobuyuki Okada, Daryl Kobayashi, and Russell Kitagawa.

Save the Date: JANM 2014 Gala Dinner

Esther Shin Leave a comment

2014 Gala Dinner - Evolving Pastimes

It’s time again for JANM’s annual Gala Dinner! This year’s theme is Evolving Pastimes: Connecting Communities & Generations through Sports. It will be an evening of enlightening stories of history-making men and women who took sports beyond play to inspire, unite, elevate, and shape Japanese Americans.

We will celebrate athletes and sports personalities who not only made an impact at the highest levels of competition but helped forge enduring bonds—from the Nisei who sought normalcy through during the dark days of camp through sports like football, baseball, and basketball to the phenomenal growth of Japanese American leagues after the war.

IMG_0330
Photo by Tracy Kumono

 

When: Saturday, April 12, 2014

Where: Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel
2025 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067

5PM – Silent Auction & Seafood Reception
7PM – Gala Dinner & Program
9:30PM – After Party

For more information about the Gala, please visit the 2014 Gala Dinner page: janm.org/dinner2014.

Japanese American National Museum - Summer Festival on the Courtyard medals

JA Sports Trivia Questions

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda 1 Comment

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!

Japanese American National Museum - Summer Festival on the Courtyard medals

JA Trivia Challenge this Saturday

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda 2 Comments
Japanese American National Museum - Summer Festival on the Courtyard medals
Go for the Gold!

If you are:

a) knowledgeable about Japanese American sports

b) knowledgeable about sports trivia in general

c) have always wanted to be on a game show

d) good sports who would like to learn some interesting JA sports trivia

or just competitive…come participate in our JA Trivia Challenge at the free Summer Festival on the Courtyard event this Saturday! Our Discover Nikkei team is putting together a fun, highly interactive game with prizes for both contestants and audience members. It’s free to participate and attend!

All teams of 2 must check in between 12:30-12:50pm on Saturday at the Democracy Forum. In addition to winning medals, the top 3 teams will win gift certificates to our award-winning Museum Store (1st place: $100, 2nd place: $50, 3rd place: $20).

Mike Palma of Cold Tofu will be our game show host. Our judge/referee will be Brian Niiya of Densho (who also happened to be the curator for our More Than a Game: Sport in the Japanese American Community exhibition in 2000).

Date: Saturday, August 11, 2012

Location: Democracy Forum at the Japanese American National Museum

Schedule:

12:30-12:50pm: Teams check in
12:30pm: Forum doors open for teams & audience
1-2pm: Game time!
4:30pm: JA Olympics Medal Ceremony for winning teams

The Game
The JA Sports Trivia Challenge will consist of…

Round 1—Selection Round: All registered teams will participate in a single-elimination round with all multiple-choice questions. The top 3 teams advance to Round 2.

Audience Questions: Our game show host will have trivia questions for the audience to win some prizes!

Round 2: The top 3 teams will come down to the stage to answer multiple choice and a few fill-in questions for points.

Bonus Round: Identify 10 JA athletes and their sports. Audience members can play along to win more prizes!

At the end of the Bonus Round, we’ll tally all the points to see who will capture the Gold, Silver, and Bronze!

Hints: If you want to “train” for the event, we will have questions about past & present Japanese American athletes from the Olympics, and both amateur and professional sports. To be the winning team, you don’t have to answer all questions correctly, just get more points than the other teams. Questions will be a combination of mostly multiple choice and a few fill-in, so even if you don’t know all the answers, you could still do well if you’re lucky.

See you there!

Summer Festival coming up this Saturday!

Vicky Murakami-Tsuda Leave a comment

14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard - Japanese American Olympics. Saturday, August 11, 2012. 11am-5pm. FREE ADMISSION ALL DAY!

Our 14th Annual Summer Festival on the Courtyard is this weekend!

Sporty Courtyard Kaeru waving JANM flagSummer Festival is our BIGGEST event of the year. We’re preparing a full day of FREE family fun. If you couldn’t make it to London for the Summer Olympics, come out to JANM for the JA Olympics!

LOTS of free activities and crafts to keep kids of all ages busy all day, or just stop by in between checking out the various Nisei Week and Tanabata Festival festivities going on throughout Little Tokyo.

We’re especially excited about our Jan Ken Po Tournament, JA Trivia Challenge, and Origami Design Contest! Compete for your chances to win a special JA Olympics medal & prizes!

Jan Ken Po Tournament

P.S. This month is also your last chance to come check out our very popular Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami and Xploration Lab 2012 exhibitions before they close on August 26th!