Does your mouth start to water when you see a steamy bowl of ramen or udon? Is your go-to snack Spam musubi or onigiri? Same here! Food plays a huge role in our cultural identities. This summer, Discover Nikkei is making a video that highlights how Nikkei around the world share a community through food. We’d love for you to participate!
If you’re handy with a camera—or a smartphone—we’re asking you to take a video with your favorite cultural food (or perhaps your Oba-chan’s signature dish?), and then “pass it” to the virtual person next to you. Plus, take a picture of your plate to show us the delicious Nikkei cuisine you prepared! We’ll be editing all the submissions together to form one longer video of Nikkei sharing food around the worldwide dinner table. The video will be shared on our website, YouTube channel, and social media platforms.
The final video will be a celebration of the incredible diversity of our global community. No acting experience necessary! Just be yourself and have a great time. If you’re feeling extra creative, put something in the frame that represents where you live. Maybe a favorite team jersey, a photo of a special place, or a national flag in the background—the more creative, the better!
For all the details on how to shoot and submit your video, visit 5dn.org/pass-the-food. We can’t wait to see your videos!
Hayakawa family Christmas photo, ca. 1935. Ruth with candy cane in back row, left. (Gift of Ruth S. Kacho, 2002.4.1)
This year’s JANM holiday card features a photograph of the Hayakawa family celebrating Christmas. The 3.75″ square photo is one of dozens of family moments captured in the Hayakawa family photo album donated by Ruth Sumiko Kacho (née Hayakawa) in 2002, and preserved in JANM’s permanent collection.
The Kacho Collection, totaling 68 objects, includes studio portraits, panoramic photos, marriage licenses, letters, books, and a photo album, which includes dozens of candid family shots including this year’s holiday image.
The album was compiled by Ruth’s father, Mataichi (Martin) Hayakawa, who inscribed its pages with the locations, dates and names of those in the photographs. The back page of the album, is marked with the date November 30, 1967, presumably indicating when the album was completed.
Hawakawa family photo album (Gift of Ruth S. Kacho, 2002.4.1)
The album includes photographs of Mataichi and his wife, Tomiko, and their families and friends in Japan and in South America; Mataichi and Tomiko’s lives before marriage—including his travels to South America, Cuba, and England, and her service as a nurse in Korea; their life and floral business in Southern California; family friends and associates in Southern California; family trips to tourist destinations in the U.S. and Japan; post-war life in Japan during the occupation; and two generations of child rearing (Mataichi and Tomiko Hayakawa; Ruth and her husband, Marquis Hironobu Kacho).
Ruth Hayakawa, 1941. Inscription reads: “Darling Baby, From Sis” (Gift of Ruth S. Kacho, 2002.4.7)
Upon its acceptance into JANM’s permanent collection in 2002, curator Emily Anderson wrote, “The album figuratively and literally brings together into a single document the separate and shared experiences of Mataichi, his wife Tomiko, Ruth and her siblings, and Hironobu Kacho.”
The Kacho Collection also includes an oral history interview with Ruth. Prompted by JANM volunteers Its Endo and Yoshiko Sakurai, on December 1999, Ruth sat with JANM volunteer Gary Ono and curator Sojin Kim to tell her fascinating life story and have it videotaped. Ruth recounted her father and mother’s immigration story, her childhood growing up in Los Angeles’s Atwater Village district, her education in Japan at Keisen Girls School in Tokyo, her marriage to Marquis Hironobu Kacho, and her work in Japan during World War II as a broadcaster with Radio Tokyo.
For the first time since its recording, Ruth’s interview can now be viewed as part of JANM’s Unboxed video series, which shines light on the thousands of objects in its permanent collection.
And perhaps, as you gather (remotely via Zoom or Skype) with aunts, uncles, and grandparents this coming holiday season, you will find time to sit, talk, and possibly record some of your own family stories!
JANM’s 2013 interns celebrate the end of a great summer internship!
Every summer the Getty Foundation organizes a Multicultural Undergraduate Internship program in Los Angeles that aims to encourage greater diversity in the professions related to museums and the visual arts. This year JANM hired three interns—Kelly in Media Arts, Cindi in Production, and myself, Esther, in the Curatorial department.
For the majority of the summer we worked separately, but for the last few weeks, we worked together to produce a final collaboration project which would culminate in a promotional video for the exhibition, I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story.
Media Arts intern, Kelly, searches for artifacts on JANM’s database.
As the exhibition takes a sweeping look at how Asian Pacific Americans have shaped and been shaped by the course of U.S. history, we decided to interview Asian Pacific Americans of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and occupations on a variety of topics. Our central question was “What do you want from your America?”. We also asked each interviewee to finish the sentence “I am…”. We got a wide array of answers that allows any viewer to appreciate the cultural, historical, and social diversity among Asian Pacific Americans.
The interns are guided through the Collections Department by JANM’s Collections Manager, Maggie Wetherbee.
For footage we used photographs from the exhibition itself, and made stops around Downtown Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo and Chinatown. We also visited our own Collections Department at JANM to photograph artifacts and photographs that were relevant to the exhibition. It was an exciting day because we saw how expansive our Collections Department is, and we got to personally handle artifacts!
A shot from Wong Fu Productions’ “10 Year Anniversary” clip.
We were also granted permission from Youtube stars including, fitness instructor Cassey Ho from Blogilates, singers David Choi and Clara C, and Wong Fu Productions for our preview clip. Although we did not use all of these clips for our final video, we were able to get exciting experience communicating with professionals, and were able compile more than enough footage so that we had many options while editing our video.
Check out our final video to see who’s footage and interviews made it into our collaboration project!
Curatorial intern, Esther, carefully handling a “Justice for Vincent Chin” pin from the ’80s.
It was a time-consuming project, but it was also a great experience because we were able to collaborate with each other, appreciate each of our talents, and examine how different departments come together to produce a project. For us, this experience reinforced the fact that museums, including JANM, are not made up of individuals working separately, but rather, individuals working and collaborating together to produce something great!
Cindi, JANM’s 2013 production intern, designing an event flyer.
If you haven’t seen it already, I Want the Wide American Earth is on display at JANM until October 27th. Also, be sure to catch Our American Voice—a special two-person show starring Traci Kato-Kiriyama, and Johnny Kwon (also the narrators of our final video), exploring six diverse stories of Asian Pacific Americans. This special performance was produced in partnership with East West Players, and will be performed at 1pm in the exhibition gallery every Saturday for the duration of the exhibition.
Photos by: Kelly Gates, and Esther Shin.
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For more information on I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story, visit: janm.org/wide-american-earth.
Thank you to the over 500 people who joined us at our fourth National Conference, Speaking Up! Democracy, Justice, Dignity, held July 4–7 in Seattle, Washington.
Participants came from around the nation, as well as from Canada and Japan to participate in a jam-packed program commemorating the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Liberties Act. [See below for a video of Secretary Norman Mineta’s keynote address at the dinner banquet on July 6.]
We are now going through the photos, video footage, and audio recordings of the conference so that we can make them available on the Web. But for now, because we are so excited about all of the media, wanted to preview just a few of the photos and to say THANK YOU for helping make the conference unforgettable! And a special THANK YOU to the folks in Seattle for sharing the history of their wonderful city with us.
Witness: The Legacy of Heart Mountain (ABC 7; David Ono)
In the eyes of ABC 7 Eyewitness News Anchor David Ono, lessons from the Heart Mountain concentration camps still resonate today. In the four-part special, Witness: The Legacy of Heart Mountain, Ono explores the camp’s history and legacy.
Witness tells the story of the camp through photos from the Hirahara collection. While incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Patti Hirahara’s father and grandfather—both avid photographers—secretly built a darkroom under their barrack. They would go on to shoot and print over 2,000 photos cataloguing life inside the camp. Interspersed are interviews with those connected to the camps, from those incarcerated such as Judge Lance Ito and his mother, to Shirley Higuchi, Chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Board of Directors.
The Japanese American National Museum plays a role in this documentary as well. Several interviews were filmed in the Museum’s Common Ground: The Heart of Community exhibition, supplemented by archival footage from the Museum’s permanent collection.
David Ono’s Witness is a moving look into the Japanese American experience during some of America’s darkest hours, told by the people who witnessed it firsthand and complemented by striking photos from inside the camps.
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.
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!
For those who can’t make it down to see the exhibition or prefer to watch it from the comfort of your own home, we will be sharing them online over the next few months.
The first video up is about Gidra, the seminal magazine of the Asian American movement published from April 1969 to April 1974.
Our volunteers are amazing. They continually inspire us with their dedication and enthusiasm. They are even willing to step outside their comfort zones if it means helping the museum to share the important stories of the Japanese American experience.
Since last summer, staff at our Watase Media Arts Center along with interns and volunteers have been working on a series of digital shorts that record many of our docents and other volunteers. The videos share the volunteer’s personal stories related to artifacts from our core Common Ground: The Heart of Community exhibition.
We’re collecting them together for easy access on our Discover Nikkei website. There are already 15 of the videos online, with more being added almost weekly.
Check out the volunteer videos on Discover Nikkei:
The 21st Century Museum: Significant artifacts selected by Japanese American National Museum Volunteers http://5dn.org/janm-vols
Volunteers featured so far: 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.
Miss Kato, Canadian Rodeo Queen, Los Angeles, California, 1955. Japanese American National Museum Toyo Miyatake/Rafu Shimpo Collection, photograph by Toyo Miyatake Studio, gift of the Alan Miyatake Family. (96.267.316)
Nikkei newspapers like The Rafu Shimpo in Los Angeles and the Nichi Bei up in San Francisco have served important roles since the early Issei immigrants began establishing communities across the United States.
Last spring, our Discover Nikkei team began working on a project to share stories about some of these publications and organize a public program. On April 2, 2011, we presented “From Newsprint to New Media: The Evolving Role of Nikkei Newspaper” in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum in partnership with The Rafu Shimpo, Nichi Bei Foundation/Nichi Bei Weekly, Cultural News, and Nikkei Nation.
The program included a historical overview by Gil Asakawa and presentations by panelists Gwen Muranaka (Rafu Shimpo), Kenji Taguma, (Nichi Bei Foundation/Nichi Bei Weekly), Shigeharu Higashi (Cultural News), and George Johnston (Nikkei Nation). The presentations were followed by a moderated discussion and questions from the audience covering topics such as the coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as well as local relief efforts; the viability of Nikkei media and the closing of some longtime newspapers in recent years; how can Nikkei media change to be relevant to younger demographics without alienating older generations; and the use and role of social media.
