Check out the Kogi Korean Taco Truck will be in front of the National Museum this Thursday. If you've never had Korean style tacos, this is an opportunity you shouldn't miss! We will also have the mellow soundz of Akaider.

For more information, go to: kogibbq.com/.

Tour our ongoing exhibition Common Ground: Heart of a Community with our experienced and knowledgeable docents.

Through her new children’s book, Mei Ling in China City—a true story of friendship between a Chinese American girl in China City and a Japanese American girl in a concentration camp—author Icy Smith (Sui Bing Tang) will present the history of the Los Angeles’s early Chinatowns, and the Chinese and Japanese American experiences during World War II.

For sale through the Museum Store.

Check out the Kogi Korean Taco Truck will be in front of the National Museum this Thursday. If you've never had Korean style tacos, this is an opportunity you shouldn't miss!

For more information, go to: kogibbq.com/.

FREE ALL DAY!

Enjoy a day of family fun with anime and comic book activities and workshops. Keeping checking back for program schedule!

Generously sponsored by Target, these special Saturdays are filled with fun activities giving families unique ways to learn, play, and grow together.


All day craft activities:

Put your drawings in motion by creating your own flipbook.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s YOU! Become a superhero by designing your own mask and cape.

Ruthie’s Origami Corner: Make an origami jumping frog!

All day special events and exhibition:

A continuous screening of Spike TV’s anime sensation Afro Samurai

View prints from Afro Samurai in our one time only special viewing

11:00 PM – Doors open

12:00 PM – East West Players Presents: Drop in Family Improv Workshop

1:00 & 3 PM – Animation & Digital Story Telling Workshop with Mar Elepaño
The Quickstory – using blank index cards and a pencil, the participants will create a short narrative using picture panels. They will then narrate it in real time recording just the panels with their voice as narration. The performance will be played back as a digital movie.

1:30 PM – A conversation with Afro Samurai

2:00 PM – Reading of The Year of the Ox with author Oliver Chin
2009 is the Year of the Ox! Olivia is a young ox eager to help but growing up is challenging. When her friend Mei gets in trouble, can Olivia rescue her adopted sister and discover her true character? Olivia's amazingly illustrated quest will delight children and adults alike. Fourth in the annual series Tales from the Chinese Zodiac, The Year of the Ox features all the colorful animals of the lunar calendar and shows how fun it is to "have a cow!" [Purchase a copy of The Year of the Ox at the Museum Store Online]

2:30 PM – The history of Anime/Manga with Oliver Chin
Are you a fan of anime & manga? Well the world started before Bakugan, Bleach, and Naruto! Learn how Japanese animation & comics came to the USA as comics pro Oliver Chin tells how he helped make Pokemon a #1 hit (and other interesting stories) and the history of other best-selling series you might not know about. Once we're done, you'll have more titles you'll need to add to your reading and viewing lists!

4:00 PM – Doors close

ABOUT OUR FRIENDS:

Mar Elepaño
Mar Elepaño was born in the Philippines in 1954. He left for Los Angeles to study film in 1975 at the University of Southern California. He finished his degree in Film Production and stayed on to become a staff member and later adjunct faculty. He has been teaching at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in the John C. Hench Division of Animation & Digital Arts since 1993 and also serves as the production supervisor for the division. He has been involved with community arts programs in Los Angeles that help young people create personal time based narratives since 1986 with organizations like Visual Communications Inc., the Heart Project, the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, the Korean Resource Center, Khmer Girls in Action.

Afro Samurai
Afro Samurai is the story of a Black samurai in a futuristic yet feudal Japan who is on a mission to avenge the wrongful death of his father. Afro is a warrior who travels a solitary path encountering a myriad of enemies, friends, and challenges beyond imagination. (From IMDB.com)

East West Players
East West Players is an Asian American theatre organization in Los Angeles, founded in 1965. As one of the nation’s first Asian American theatre organizations, East West Players today continues to produce works and educational programs that give voice to the Asian Pacific American experience.

For more information go to: www.eastwestplayers.org.

Oliver Chin
Oliver Chin is the publisher of Immedium (www.immedium.com) which creates wonderfully illustrated children’s books. A graduate of Harvard, he has written many books including The Tao of Yao: Insights from Basketball's Brightest Big Man, the graphic novel 9 of 1: A Window to the World, Julie Black Belt and the The Year of the Ox from the popular The Tales of the Chinese Zodiac series.

Oliver Chin helped popularize anime and manga in America by selling 1 million copies of Pokemon comics #1, which holds the US comics industry record for most printings (16). Called a “comics expert" and "an expert in Pacific Rim pop culture” by the San Jose Mercury News, he teaches people how to make their own comics at schools and libraries nationwide.

2009 Target Free Family Saturday schedule

March 14 – Say Cheese!

April 11 – What's Cooking?

Other Family Events at the National Museum

March 28: SPRING ROLLS into JANM (a family cooking workshop)

Gokurosama: Contemporary Photos of the Nisei in Hawaii opens.

A special private member's only tour of the new exhibition Gokurosama: Contemporary Photos of the Nisei in Hawaii.

By invitation only.

Come hear photographer Brian Y. Sato talk about his newest exhibition Gokurosama: Contemporary Photos of the Nisei in Hawaii.

Reception to follow.

FREE all day!

Create fun Girl’s Day and recycled security envelope flowered cards for your friends and family. $8 for National Museum members; $13 for non-members, includes Museum admission and supplies.

This exciting documentary features the first Asian American pro basketball player, Wat Misaka. This film will be shown at the Aratani/Japan America Theater.

To make reservations or for more information contact: Aratani/Japan America Theatre Box Office 213 680-3700. Tickets are $10 General Admission, $8 Seniors/Students, $7 JACCC & JANM Members.

Presented in collaboration with the Japanese American Community Culture Center, Little Tokyo Service Center, and the National Museum.

Free Screening of Whispers

Chumash filmmaker George Angelo, Jr. interviews and documents three Indigenous cultures of Southern California: the Chumash, Tongva/Gabrielino, and Juaneno. This extraordinary documentary presents their history and living traditions, with a special focus on rock art, the tomol, and dolphin dancers. Guests for the night include filmmaker George Angelo, Jr.

Bringing the Circle Together: A Native American Film Series

Bringing the Circle Together: A Native American Film Series is a FREE monthly film series located in downtown Los Angeles at the National Center for Preservation of Democracy. The film series was established to provide quality documentaries by and about Indigenous people of the Americas, and bring together a central gathering place where discussion and awareness of issues can be shared with the Native community and its supporters.

The film series is held at the National Center for Preservation of Democracy located at 111 North Central Avenue, between 1st Street and Central Avenue, in downtown Los Angeles. The NCPD can be reached via train, bus, or parking in the area (pdf for directions). Doors open at 6:30pm.

The film series is hosted by Lorin Morgan-Richards and Tahesha Knapp-Christensen and is sponsored by the following organizations:

The Japanese American National Museum
The National Center for Preservation of Democracy
Hecho de Mano
Nahui Ohlin
InterTribal Entertainment

For more information about the film series please visit www.myspace.com/nafilmseries
or by email at nafilmseries@aol.com

PLEASE NOTE: THIS WEEK KOGI HAS BEEN MOVED FROM THURSDAY TO FRIDAY

Check out the Kogi Korean Taco Truck will be in front of the National Museum this Thursday. If you've never had Korean style tacos, this is an opportunity you shouldn't miss!

For more information, go to: kogibbq.com/.

FREE ALL DAY!

The Day of Remembrance is held each year to commemorate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. EO 9066 authorized the unconstitutional forced removal of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the west coast and Hawai'i during World War II.

Mass incarceration of Japanese Americans was accepted by the majority of US Citizens because of the racial prejudice that existed toward a community of immigrants. Alien Land Laws prevented Japanese Issei's the right to own land, anti-miscegenation laws prevented them from marrying outside their race, and the "American" community was generally unwilling to incorporate these immigrants into mainstream society. Now 67 years later, this same prejudice and stigma around immigration still exists. The 2009 Day of Remembrance program will commemorate Japanese American immigration while creating connections to the current day debate. The program seeks to forge alliances and stand in solidarity with a new generation of communities working towards positive change in immigration reform and integration in a new America.

Keynote Address: Professor Roger Daniels, Charles Taft Phelps Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in WWII

NCRR Fighting Spirit Award: Lillian Nakano

Voices of Immigration: Issei Stories & UCLA IDEAS-Zeenat Bhamani, Wendy Ito, Matias Ramos

Rapper: Prophet

Congressman Xavier Becerra (CA-31) Invited

Justice for Japanese Latin Americans

Presented in collaboration with the Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress, the Japanese American Citizen’s League–Pacific Southwest, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Lane Hirabayashi (The George & Sakaye Aratani Chair in Japanese American Internment, Redress and Community), and the National Museum.

Check out the Kogi Korean Taco Truck will be in front of the National Museum this Thursday. If you've never had Korean style tacos, this is an opportunity you shouldn't miss!

For more information, go to: kogibbq.com/.

Relive history and learn about present-day Little Tokyo with National Museum docents. $8 Members; $13 non-members, includes Museum admission. Comfortable walking shoes and clothes recommended. Weather permitting.

Saturday, Feb 28 @ 8:00 PM
Sunday, March 1 @ 3:00PM & 7:30 PM

In commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Written by Elizabeth Wong, and directed by Peter J. Kuo, Letters is about a decade-long correspondence between two pen pals and their search for true democracy. Panel discussion of civil and human rights advocates and scholars will follow the Sunday matinee performance at 5 PM. $15 members/Student/Seniors/Groups (10+); $20 for non-members.

For more information and/or to make ticket reservations, go to: www.addwordproductions.com or call 310-594-3068.

SPECIAL EXHIBITION: TIANANMEN STORY: A Photo Essay Exhibition by Visual Artists Guild, with additional special photographs by Catherine Bauknight