Japanese American National Museum
Established in 1985, Japanese American National Museum (JANM) promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over 70 exhibitions onsite while traveling 17 exhibits to leading cultural museums in the US, Japan, and South America. For more information, visit janm.org or follow us on social media @jamuseum.
Updated March 2023
Stories from This Author
In Remembrance of the Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami: An Interview with The Hidden Japan’s Derek Yamashita—Part 2
March 11, 2023 • Japanese American National Museum
Read Part 1 >> GOING BEYOND DEREK’S TOHOKU WORK Your work at The Hidden Japan has expanded to include creating events in Japan and America that celebrate our cultures and help provide cross-cultural understanding. What drove you to that mission for your business? As a Japanese American growing up in the Japanese American (JA) community, I have been able to see that the Japanese culture we are able to see in LA is only a small window into Japan. Even …
In Remembrance of the Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami: An Interview with The Hidden Japan’s Derek Yamashita — Part 1
March 10, 2023 • Japanese American National Museum
Since 2011, March 11 has become a day of remembrance for the hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives that were changed forever by the devastating Great Tohoku Kanto earthquake. Many lives were lost due to the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. It caused numerous problems that affected the people and region in the weeks that followed, and continued for months and years to come. From the failure of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima to saltwater contamination of the soil to …
A Trunk Full of Stories: The Shogo Myaida Collection
Jan. 19, 2015 • Japanese American National Museum
In 1990, two years before the Japanese American National Museum opened to the public, curator Brian Niiya looked through a shabby old trunk in Albertson, New York. An elderly Japanese American gentleman and his wife had recently died. Neighbor and family friend Gloria Massimo had preserved the trunk full of letters, papers, class notes, printed materials about landscaping, and thousands of photographs. Urged by Museum charter member Lily Kiyasu, who had met and interviewed Shogo Myaida and his wife Grace, …
An Unusual Childhood - A Profile of Suki Terada Ports
Dec. 8, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
Suki Setsuko Terada Ports is an outspoken woman with an infectious laugh and a straightforward manner. She is well known in New York as a dedicated and tireless activist. Ports has devoted much of her life to community service. In recent years most of her time has been spent helping to create AIDS projects, including one serving New York City’s Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Suki calls her childhood “unusual.” Her father, Yoshio Albert Terada, grew up in Hawai‘i, where …
Community Activism A Family Tradition - Profile of Umeko Kawamoto
June 23, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
Umeko Kawamoto is a bright-eyed woman with a radiant smile who enjoys reminiscing about San Diego’s thriving Japanese American community in the years before World War II. She recalls the prewar Japantown, in what is now downtown’s Gaslamp Quarter, as a bustling neighborhood that included grocery stores, restaurants, pool halls, dry goods stores, and hotels. The neighborhood, like Japanese districts all up and down the west coast, was emptied of its residents during World War II and never regained its …
There Wasn’t Anything to Be Afraid of In Those Days – Profile of Aiko Owashi
June 16, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
Aiko Owashi, like so many Nisei women, begins an interview with the claim that her life is not interesting; nothing much ever happened to her. She acknowledges that her family is “deeply rooted” in San Diego, and soon is telling stories that illuminate a remarkable history. Owashi’s father, Toraichi Ozaki, came from Wakayama to San Diego at about the turn of the last century. He was, Owashi notes proudly, a charter member of the Ocean View United Church of Christ …
He Kept the Boat Alive – Profile by Harold Ikemura
June 2, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
Harold Ikemura loves to tell stories about his years in the fishing fleet. At 83, he recalls with astonishing detail the particulars of his long life and of his years at sea. “I love fishing,” he says with delight. As a teenager, Ikemura went trout fishing along the San Gabriel River with the sons of a prominent Pasadena Japanese American family. Dr. Takejiro Itow, one of the founders of the Japanese hospital in Los Angeles, also had a daughter, Sumi, …
The Best Fertilizer is Your Shadow: The Chino Family Farm
May 28, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
“Chino Ranch Chopped Salad” is featured on the menu at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s Hollywood restaurant. “Chino Ranch Salad” also appears on the menus of a number of lesser known restaurants, many of which don’t buy their vegetables at the Chino family’s modest stand just inland from Del Mar, California, but don’t mind capitalizing on its renown. This Japanese American family has been the subject of a lengthy New Yorker magazine profile, newspaper articles, and a recent NBC news segment with …
A Different Kind of Approach – A Profile of Yoshiko Uragami
May 22, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
Yoshiko Uragami is a remarkable woman—though she will deny that there’s anything very special about her, her Nisei modesty can’t hide a powerful spirit and irresistible sense of humor, and her scrap books and photo albums reveal a rich history. Born in a midwife’s house on Crocker Street in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo in 1918, “when the dinosaurs were still walking around,” Uragami grew up in Southern California. It’s hard for her visitors to believe she’s nearing her 80th birthday, …
From a Life History Interview with SAKAE TAKAHASHI
May 5, 2014 • Japanese American National Museum
The 100th was Formally Organized When the war started, the Niseis who were drafted were already in two Hawaiian National Guard Regiments, the 299th Infantry and the 298th Infantry… The day the war started, they were already deployed because most army and federalized National Guard Units were already on alert… When the war started, they stayed with their respective National Guard Units. And as I understand it, during the battle of Midway, there was some concern about the Niseis who …
