Japanese American National Museum (EIN 95-3966024)

Program 1 [2018]
CollectionsIn November 2017, Kristen Hayashi joined the Collections Management & Access staff as the collections manager in a part-time capacity for the remainder of the fiscal year. Between November and June, archivist Jamie Henricks facilitated 21 research visits for scholars and seven object viewings for families who donated artifacts to the permanent collection. Jamie and Collections Assistant Kelly Gates processed 29 photo license requests.CMA staff worked towards addressing the 109 artifact donation offers that were made to JANM's permanent collection between November and June. CMA staff presented 29 accession lots to the Collections Task Force and the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for acceptance into the permanent collection. Staff arranged for the shipment, installation, and de-installation of artifacts included in the Contested Histories, Transpacific Borderlands, hapa.me, and What We Carried exhibitions at the JANM. CMA staff prepared condition reports for the objects and helped with the installation and de-installation of these exhibitions. Additionally, they researched objects from the JANM Collection for potential inclusion in What We Carried (a show that originated at the Arab American National Museum) as well as the re-imagined final section of the ongoing Common Ground exhibition to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.Collections staff handled the logistics for outgoing loans of artifacts, including textiles and material culture items from the Kawakami Collection to the Johann Jacobs Museum in Zurich, Switzerland; Estelle Ishigo watercolor paintings to the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation; and Masumi Hayashi photo collages to the City of Glendale's Central Library.CMA staff advanced work on a collaborative National Park Service-funded project with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to digitize home movies in the collection. Staff and CMA volunteers inventoried over 90% of the nearly 300 linear feet of archival material that comprises the George and Brad Takei Collection. Henricks and Hayashi brought out collections for two Members Only "Learning at Lunch" programs celebrating "Girls' Day and "Boys Day." Also, Hayashi gave a talk entitled JANM's Permanent Collection: Where Stories Live On to members of the museum's Legacy Society. ExhibitionsInstructions to All Persons: Reflections on Executive Order 9066February 18 - August 13, 2017Presented in conjunction with the 75th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the World War II incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans, Instructions to All Persons: Reflections on Executive Order 9066 was an educational and interactive exhibition designed to engage visitors in critical discussions of the Japanese American incarceration experience and its continuing relevance today. Original documents, contemporary artworks, and documentary videos formed the substance of the exhibition; included were two pages of the original Executive Order 9066, on loan from the National Archives. New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George TakeiMarch 12-August 20, 2017New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei explored the life and career of pioneering actor, activist, and social media icon George Takei. By examining Takei's diverse experiences and achievements, this entertaining and interactive exhibition created a portrait of a unique individual while offering an innovative means of engaging with the social history of America. New Frontiers was curated by noted author, journalist, and cultural critic Jeff Yang.Transpacific Borderlands: The Art of Japanese Diaspora in Lima, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Sao PauloSeptember 17, 2017 - February 25, 2018Transpacific Borderlands: The Art of Japanese Diaspora in Lima, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and So Paulo examined the experiences of artists of Japanese ancestry born, raised, or living in either Latin America or predominantly Latin American neighborhoods of Southern California. By looking at the work of Japanese Latin American artists, the exhibition showed how ethnic communities, racial mixing, and the concepts of homeland and cosmopolitanism inform the creativity and aesthetics of this hybrid culture. Transpacific Borderlands was part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a Getty-led initiative exploring Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, and was made possible through grants from the Getty Foundation. The presenting sponsor of PST: LA/LA was Bank of America.Contested Histories: Art and Artifacts from the Allen Hendershott Eaton CollectionJanuary 7 - April 8, 2018While conducting research for a book about art and craft objects created by Japanese Americans during their incarceration in American concentration camps during World War II, author Allen Hendershott Eaton amassed a significant collection of such camp artifacts. In 2015, a controversial attempt to auction the artifacts was averted by Japanese American community leaders and activists, and the Eaton Collection was transferred to the Japanese American National Museum. Thanks to support from the National Park Service's Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program, the Eaton Collection has been conserved and was on view as a special display in JANM's Hirasaki National Resource Center (HNRC) prior to traveling to other venues in the United States. Every artifact was represented, in some cases digitally or with facsimiles. Through this display tour, the museum hopes to collect more information on each artifact so that it can continue to preserve and catalog this important collection.What We Carried: Fragments & Memories from Iraq & Syria May 19 - August 5, 2018This exhibition of photographs by Jim Lommasson captures cherished personal objects brought to the United States by Iraqi and Syrian refugees who successfully resettled here. Bearing handwritten notes by their owners that explain what the objects mean to them, these intimate images are a testimony to the common threads that bind all of humanity: love for family, friendship, and the places people call home. JANM proudly presented this traveling exhibition, whose theme echoes one found in discussions of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II, when prisoners were allowed to bring "only what they could carry." What We Carried originated at the Arab American National Museum. hapa.me - 15 years of the hapa project April 7 - October 28, 2018Artist Kip Fulbeck continues his project, begun in 2001, of photographing persons who identify as "Hapa"-of mixed Asian/Pacific Islander descent-as a means of promoting awareness and positive acceptance of multiracial identity. As a follow-up to kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa, his groundbreaking 2006 exhibition, hapa.me pairs the photographs and statements from that exhibition with contemporary portraits of the same individuals and newly written statements, showing not only their physical changes in the ensuing years, but also changes in their perspectives and outlooks on the world. In addition, hapa.me includes portraits of hundreds of new participants and an interactive section where viewers can join the community by having their portrait taken and writing their own personal statement. JANM-organized exhibitions continued to travel to venues around the world during FY 2018, representing a significant source of revenue for the museum. These included Perseverance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition in a Modern World, which traveled to Newcastle, Australia; and Christchurch, New Zealand; and Before They Were Heroes: Sus Ito's World War II Images, which traveled to Fullerton, California and Boston, Massachusetts.Public ProgramsIn FY 2018, JANM offered 91 public programs that served a total of 17,701 people. These included family festivals, craft workshops, talks, panel discussions, book readings, film screenings, walking tours, concerts, and a variety of other activities. Several of these events were community partnerships and collaborations with such entities as Visual Communications, Kizuna, Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, PBS SoCal, East West Players, Go For Broke National Education Center, Little Tokyo Historical Society, Asian American Journalists Association, and others.Particularly popular programs included the Natsumatusuri Family Festival, Oshogatsu Family Festival, The Asian American Movement of the 1960s-70s: JACS-AI and Activism Today, Transpacific Musiclands outdoor concert, hapa.me opening day program, Resistance at Tule Lake film screening, Day of Remembrance, and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. All of these programs were near or beyond capacity.
Geographies
Not indicated
Dates
Jul 1, 2017 – Jun 30, 2018
Source
990
No causes provided
No populations provided
–
$2.8M
Program 2 [2018]
JANM Store and janmstore.comOne of the major accomplishments for FY 2018 was the renewal of our license with NBCUniversal for the distribution and sales of the film Farewell to Manzanar. In addition to the extension of the license for 18 months, we took the opportunity to add Japanese subtitling with an eye toward expanding our audience for this landmark film. The reprint and addition arrived in time for the new store catalog launch.Transpacific Borderlands proved to be a successful exhibition for the museum store. The catalog sold well and we were able to introduce cross-cultural products like a tote bag that depicted a ramen-eating Day-of-the-Dead character. The Year of the Dog proved a great theme for museum products of all categories, the main one being our first in-house produced zodiac t-shirt. We used art created by one of our interns and made a Year of the Dog shirt that easily outsold similar t-shirts of any previous year, with the added benefit of a higher profit margin because we produced it ourselves.We added three trunk shows to our holiday season. One day featured both NUNO (the renowned Japanese textile innovators) and Hisano Shepherd (a local jewelry artist), and a separate day was with Citron (a local Asian-influenced fashion designer). These shows increased our November sales by 18%.hapa.me opened in March. The catalog arrived in time for the opening and has been selling steadily since then. For the remainder of FY 2018 we sold close to 500 catalogs. The catalog is also featured in the FY 2019 store catalog and will most likely sell out.Overall, we missed our FY 2018 projected goals by about 6%, but again, the profit margin has been higher because many of our best-sellers are museum products which we produce ourselves. We have had a 13% increase in offsite sales (including online and wholesale).
Geographies
Not indicated
Dates
Jul 1, 2017 – Jun 30, 2018
Source
990
No causes provided
No populations provided
–
$378.4K
Program 3 [2018]
Education and Visitor EngagementIn FY 2018, total attendance at JANM was 100,351. Of this number 41,494 were museum walk-ins. The School Visits Program welcomed 19,986 students and teachers who participated in educational programming held at the museum's Pavilion building and the adjoining National Center for the Preservation of Democracy.The Education Unit began a new partnership with the Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) to create a joint tour of JANM's Fighting for Democracy and GFBNEC's The Defining Courage Experience. Both exhibitions encourage critical thinking and participation as students explore civil rights issues. This was available to students in grades seven through twelve. We plan to continue this partnership.Two websites were completed for use by educators and students: Exploring America's Concentration Camps is a thematic and inquiry-based JANM microsite aimed at secondary-school students and teachers. The website integrates photographs, letters, artwork, oral histories, and moving images from JANM's permanent collection to share stories from all ten of the War Relocation Authority camps. Enemy Mail utilizes artifacts donated to JANM by the Gihachi Yamashita family to teach about the Japanese American World War II experience. It includes reflections of a father separated from his family, and the correspondence between him, his wife, and daughters as they reached out to each other through months and years of fear and anxiety. Both micro websites were funded by the National Park Service Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program.In February 2018, JANM partnered with the Los Angeles County Office of Education to present the first of a three-part teacher training on social justice. Also in February, Lynn Yamasaki, Interim Director of Education, attended a convention in Montgomery, Ala., with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the National Veterans Network to discuss Japanese American World War II curricula. Yamasaki also attended the California Association of Teachers of English conference with Mary Hendra of Facing History and Ourselves and author Stan Yogi to present a session titled Fear and Courage: Upstanders During Japanese American Incarceration.In April 2018, JANM was invited by the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Learning and Digital Access to partner with it on an educator workshop for teachers. The workshop will use the Smithsonian's Learning Lab resource to allow teachers to create and share lesson plans using digital resources and incorporate the Japanese American experience into their teaching. Also, education staff met with JANM leadership and the Arab American National Museum's (AANM) Curator of Education and Public Programming in May 2018 to discuss the work of both institutions and possibilities for future collaboration. One result of a conversation at this meeting was a video conference training about What We Carried with AANM staff for JANM staff and volunteers. Director of Education Allyson Nakamoto left JANM in October 2017. Lynn Yamasaki served as Interim Director of Education. Andie Kimura left as Education and Public Programs Assistant and Brian Rojas was hired as Temporary Education Assistant. Media ArtsThe Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center (MAC) continued to provide JANM with a comprehensive program of digital media production, presentation, documentations, preservations, educations, and training. Productions during FY 2018 included 13 international artist video profiles for the exhibition Transpacific Borderlands: The Art of Japanese Diaspora in Lima, Los Angeles, Mexico City and So Paulo. Akira Boch and Evan Kodani installed videos throughout the exhibition on four separate monitors with one monitor allowing for the choice of subtitles in four different languages. Also produced for this exhibit was the documentary Our Man in Tokyo (The Ballad of Shin Miyata) which premiered at JANM and has subsequently screened in festivals and venues in Tokyo, Osaka, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Mexico City, with more screenings scheduled for the fall of 2018.MAC staff added numerous life history interviews to the JANM archive of first-person narratives about the Japanese American experience, including but not limited to: Linda, Bill, and Fred Fujioka; Ben Furuta; Mits Kataoka; Tom Yuki; Bob Fujioka; Jeanette Inadomi; George Iwatomo; Koichi Nishimura; and Gary Hata. All interviews were transcribed and selected clips were uploaded to the Discover Nikkei website.Highlights of content created for Discover Nikkei included clips of: Antonio Shikota, a Japanese-Brazilian living in the Brazilian community of Nishi-Koizumi, Japan; Sawako Uchimura, who experienced WWII as a young girl living in the Philippines; and Ray Harbold, a Caucasian man from Gardena, Calif. who stored the belongings of his Japanese American friends during World War II.In December 2017, the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition won a National Park Service grant to research, shoot, edit, and archive 25 oral histories, and they subsequently contracted MAC to fulfill the video production and post-production portions of this project. Evan Kodani has travelled around Southern California with June Berk to film interviews for this project, which will be completed at the end of FY 2019.MAC staff recorded the JANM volunteers' Heart Mountain Pilgrimage bus trip (which took 20 JANM volunteers and members to Wyoming, where JANM President and CEO Ann Burroughs gave the keynote address); and the Tule Lake Pilgrimage, which included JANM's Contested Histories traveling display.MAC staff also successfully completed work on the JANM Annual Gala Dinner videos, including one rallying support for the Bid for Education, an introduction to singer Judith Hill, and an In Memoriam compilation.MAC staff has continued to be responsible for licensing JANM's Moving Image Collection, and provided digital clips of footage upon formal request. (Through a partnership agreement, JANM's original films are stored at the Academy Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.) MAC continues to work with the Getty Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program to mentor and instruct a student during the summer months. For 10 weeks (mid-June to mid-August 2018), Marii Krueger, a Communication major at the University of Southern California, worked closely with MAC on a variety of projects and made significant creative contributions to JANM's media presentations.Along with JANM's Public Programs Coordinator, Elizabeth Lim, MAC staff worked cross-functionally to record, process, and archive museum programming and events. Documentation included: JANM Family Free Days, panel discussions, the Transpacific Musiclands outdoor concert, book signings, lectures, film screenings, curator tours of exhibitions, performances, and the JANM Oshogatsu and Natsumatsuri Family Festivals. Excerpts were included in videos produced for JANM's Annual Gala fundraiser, and selected programs were made accessible to the public through JANM's YouTube Channel.
Geographies
Not indicated
Dates
Jul 1, 2017 – Jun 30, 2018
Source
990
No causes provided
No populations provided
–
$1.7M

Japanese American National Museum

Japanese American National Museum

Japanese American National Museum

Overview

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Program 1 [2018]

Program 2 [2018]

Program 3 [2018]

Programs