*FREE FOR STUDENTS & EDUCATORS!

Eyewitness to History is an educational program where students of all ages can interact with men and women who lived through the history they learn about in their classrooms. In this 90-minute program, students will view the 20-minute documentary Remembering Manzanar, hear first-hand accounts of what life was like for Japanese Americans during World War II, and engage in an active dialogue with the speakers.

Remember Manzanar is available on DVD >>

Little Tokyo is home to several restaurants, bakeries, and other historical eating establishments. Its 100-plus years of history provide some fascinating stories. Six Taste's Little Tokyo Tour will take you throughout Little Tokyo, from Fugetsu-Do, a confectionary shop and the oldest building in Little Tokyo to Chado Tea Room, where you'll get to taste some authentic Japanese tea, to several other restaurants and other eateries.

Six Taste's food tours are more than just walking and eating. They hope to provide you with an entertaining, educational, and exciting experience. You'll learn about Japanese culture, the history of Little Tokyo, the art and science of tasting, and have great conversations over great food.

The "Gastronaut Tour" includes a balance of history, culture, and delicious food. You'll stop at some of the most fascinating historical locations in Little Tokyo, meet owners of some of the longest running stores in Little Tokyo, try amazing food at seven different locations, and learn about Japanese culture and culinary customs. This tour is perfect for tourists or LA natives that have never ventured into Little Tokyo before.

$50 members; $55non-members, includes Museum admission. Comfortable walking shoes and warm clothes recommended. Weather permitting.

For more information about Six Taste, go to www.sixtaste.com.

Because of the highly classified nature of their work, the Military Intelligence Service’s (MIS) full contribution to the war effort has sometimes been overshadowed. Hear the important stories from Japanese American MIS veterans who fought in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

Presented in collaboration with JA Living Legacy.

For the early Issei immigrants, access to medical care was limited. Five Issei doctors sued the State of California after being denied papers of incorporation to build a hospital. The case, Jordan vs. Tashiro, was finally won in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1928. Japanese Hospital was opened in Boyle Heights in 1929.

Dr. Troy Kaji will present the history of the historic case and the establishment of the Japanese Hospital. Clips from recent interviews sharing stories about the pre-war community hospitals will be shown.

This program is co-sponsored by the Little Tokyo Historical Society and the Japanese American National Museum. It is part of a series presented by Discover Nikkei, a project of the Japanese American National Museum made possible through the generous support of The Nippon Foundation.

Little Tokyo is home to several restaurants, bakeries, and other historical eating establishments. Its 100-plus years of history provide some fascinating stories. Six Taste's Little Tokyo Tour will take you throughout Little Tokyo, from Fugetsu-Do, a confectionary shop and the oldest building in Little Tokyo to Chado Tea Room, where you'll get to taste some authentic Japanese tea, to several other restaurants and other eateries.

Six Taste's food tours are more than just walking and eating. They hope to provide you with an entertaining, educational, and exciting experience. You'll learn about Japanese culture, the history of Little Tokyo, the art and science of tasting, and have great conversations over great food.

The "Gastronaut Tour" includes a balance of history, culture, and delicious food. You'll stop at some of the most fascinating historical locations in Little Tokyo, meet owners of some of the longest running stores in Little Tokyo, try amazing food at seven different locations, and learn about Japanese culture and culinary customs. This tour is perfect for tourists or LA natives that have never ventured into Little Tokyo before.

$50 members; $55non-members, includes Museum admission. Comfortable walking shoes and warm clothes recommended. Weather permitting.

For more information about Six Taste, go to www.sixtaste.com.

Come join us for a beautiful and educational kimono show and lecture, featuring men and women's kimono for all different occasions, by the International Beauty Association Yamanoryu Kisou.

The show will feature furisode (a long sleeve kimono worn by unmarried women for ceremonies), homongi (a regular sleeved kimono worn by men and women for ceremonies), montsuki hakama (formal Japanese attire for men), and tomesode (a formal kimono worn by married women).

The lecture will include information about the different kinds of kimonos people wear, kimono patterns and designs, the kinds of kimonos you would wear for different seasons, the evolution of kimono fashion, an explanation and demonstration of how to tie an obi, and more.

This program is sponsored by the Atsuko & Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum.

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.

In recognition of the on-going service of Japanese Americans in the armed forces, hear from a distinguished panel of Korean War veterans who will share their important stories.

Presented in collaboration with JA Living Legacy.

Dr. Michiko Midge Ayukawa will shed light on the lives and histories of picture brides—Issei women who came to North America to marry husbands they knew only from photographs— and how they affected the community.

Michiko Midge Ayukawa was born in Vancouver, B.C. During World War II, she was incarcerated for four years at Lemon Creek, in the Slocan Valley, Canada. Her family resettled in Hamilton, Ontario. After obtaining her BSc and MSc at McMaster University, she worked at the National Research Council in Ottawa. Later she taught undergraduate Chemistry laboratory classes at Carleton University and the University of Victoria. In the mid-80s, she began to study history and obtained a Doctorate in 1997 at the University of Victoria. Ayukawa has written a number of articles on Japanese Canadians, in particular, Japanese picture brides. She has co-authored with Audrey Kobayashi “The Japanese Canadians” in Akemi Kikumura-Yano, ed., Encyclopedia of Japanese Descendants in the Americas, Altimira Press, 2002 and is also co-author with Patricia Roy of “The Japanese,” in Paul Robert Margosi, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples, University of Toronto Press, 1999. A book based on her dissertation, Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941 was published in November 2007 by UBC Press.

This program was made possible by the generous support of the UCLA Paul I. & Hisako Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies

Little Tokyo is home to several restaurants, bakeries, and other historical eating establishments. Its 100-plus years of history provide some fascinating stories. Six Taste's Little Tokyo Tour will take you throughout Little Tokyo, from Fugetsu-Do, a confectionary shop and the oldest building in Little Tokyo to Chado Tea Room, where you'll get to taste some authentic Japanese tea, to several other restaurants and other eateries.

Six Taste's food tours are more than just walking and eating. They hope to provide you with an entertaining, educational, and exciting experience. You'll learn about Japanese culture, the history of Little Tokyo, the art and science of tasting, and have great conversations over great food.

The "Gastronaut Tour" includes a balance of history, culture, and delicious food. You'll stop at some of the most fascinating historical locations in Little Tokyo, meet owners of some of the longest running stores in Little Tokyo, try amazing food at seven different locations, and learn about Japanese culture and culinary customs. This tour is perfect for tourists or LA natives that have never ventured into Little Tokyo before.

$50 members; $55non-members, includes Museum admission. Comfortable walking shoes and warm clothes recommended. Weather permitting.

For more information about Six Taste, go to www.sixtaste.com.

Calling Tokyo tells the story of Japanese Americans who participated in the United States and Britain's World War II broadcast campaign to influence the hearts and minds of people in Japan. Some of the radio broadcasters will share their experiences after the screening.

This is a story of discovery by a son, (Gary Ono) who learned about what his father did during the war, shortly after the signing of the 1988 Civil Rights Act. Upon finding out, he set out to tell this unhearalded story about his father (Sam Masami Ono) and a group of Japanese Americans who as U.S. civilians served America during World War II even as their family and friends were imprisoned in concentration camps.

While the unequaled battle records of Japanese American soldiers are now legendary, little is known about the vital role played by these US citizens who did language translation work and short wave radio broadcasting to Japan assisting in the joint wartime propaganda efforts of Britain and the USA. Through actual recordings and first person interviews with the participants of those broadcasts, ”Calling Tokyo” is a fascinating story about a unique effort to support and help hasten the end of the war.

Produced by Janice D. Tanaka and Gary T. Ono, Written by Sreescanda and Gary Ono, Edited by Sreescanda. 47:30

Made possible by a grant awarded by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and with personal redress- reparation funds.

Gary T. Ono, is a Sansei transplant from San Francisco, California who now resides in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. He is a volunteer photographer for the Japanese American National Museum. In 2001, he was awarded a California Civil Liberties Public Education Program grant to produce a video documentary, "Calling Tokyo: Japanese American Radio Broadcasters of World War II." He moderated two education programs at the National Museum: "The Other Side of Tokyo Rose" and a screening of "Calling Tokyo."

*Picture by Tokyo Broadcasting System – re-creation of radio broadcasting

Kiyo’s Story is the compelling story of starting a family in California, coping during the Depression, being swept off to concentration camps, and ultimately surviving and succeeding despite terrible odds and oppressive prejudice.

As a special bonus, Ms. Sato will be offering tips on how to write your own story!

[Purchase a copy of Kiyo's Story at the Museum Store Online]

FREE!

You Don’t Know Jack is a new one-hour documentary film by director/filmmaker and SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi. The film tells the fascinating story of a pioneering American entertainer Jack Soo, born as Goro Suzuki, who grew up in Oakland and became the first Asian American to be cast in the lead role in a regular television series Valentine’s Day (1963), and later starred in the popular comedy show Barney Miller (1975-1978), laying the groundwork for a new generation of Asian American actors and comedians.

The film features rare footage and interviews with Soo’s co-stars and friends, including actors George Takei, Nancy Kwan and Max Gail, comedians Steve Landesberg and Gary Austin, and producer Hal Kanter, tracing Jack’s early beginnings as a nightclub singer and comedian, to his breakthrough role as Sammy Fong in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Broadway play and film version of The Flower Drum Song. The film also explores why Soo, a former internee who was actually born Goro Suzuki, was forced to change his name in the post WWII era, in order to perform in clubs in the mid-west. Because of his experiences, throughout his career in films and television, Soo refused to play roles that were demeaning to Asian Americans and often spoke out against negative ethnic portrayals.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A by director Jeff Adachi. For more information, please visit www.jacksoo.com.

In 1994, the Japanese American National Museum staff and volunteers organized a project to travel to Heart Mountain, Wyoming to take apart and bring back to Los Angeles two fragments of original barracks buildings built by the U.S. government to house Japanese Americans unfairly imprisoned during World War II. The project was part of the National Museum’s landmark exhibition, America’s Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese American Experience, and the display of the Heart Mountain barracks building became the symbol of the unconstitutional mass incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

The project, organized by Museum staff member Nancy Araki and former Heart Mountain inmate Bacon Sakatani, included dozens of former inmates and interested parties who traveled over 1,000 miles or more to take part in the dismantling. To recall the historic events, the program will include the screening of the award winning documentary, “Legacy of the Barracks”, produced by Mark Mohr for KABC-TV Channel 7 in 1994.

Also on hand will be other key participants, including Ron Mukai, whose father Tomo lived in the barracks fragment still on display at the Museum; Sakatani; Araki; contractor David Honda; author Sharon Yamato, who, along with her cousins, took part in the dismantling, and then wrote a book on her experiences, Moving Walls: Preserving the Barracks of America’s Concentration Camps; and, preservation architect Jim McElwain, who oversaw the logistics of the dismantling and the reassembly in Los Angeles.

Following the program, a reception will be held adjacent to the Heart Mountain barracks in the National Museum’s Pavilion.

[Purchase a copy of Moving Walls: Preserving the Barracks of America's Concentration Camps at the Museum Store Online]

WORLD WAR II ALIEN INTERNMENT BY JOHN CHRISTGAU They were called aliens and enemies. But the World War II internees John Christgau writes about were in fact ordinary people victimized by the politics of a global war. The Alien Enemy Control Program in America was born with the United States’s declaration of war on Japan, Germany, and Italy and lasted until 1948. In all, 31,275 “enemy aliens” were imprisoned in camps like the one described in this book—Fort Lincoln, just south of Bismarck, North Dakota.

In animated and suspenseful prose, Christgau tells the stories of several individuals whose experiences are representative of those at Fort Lincoln. The subjects’ lives before and after capture—presented in five case studies—tell of encroaching bitterness and sorrow. Christgau based his accounts on voluminous and previously untouched National Archives and FBI documents in addition to letters, diaries, and interviews with his subjects.

Christgau’s afterword for this Bison Books edition relates additional stories of World War II alien restriction, detention, and internment that surfaced after this book was originally published, and he draws parallels between the alien internment of World War II and events in this country since September 11, 2001.

John Christgau is the author of numerous books, including Kokomo Joe (Nebraska 2009), The Gambler and the Bug Boy (Nebraska 2007), and The Origins of the Jump Shot: Eight Men Who Shook the World of Basketbal l, available in a Bison Books edition.

Margaret Chula and Cathy Erickson make the concentration camp experience come alive in their seven-year collaborative project joining poetry and quilts. Margaret's original poems, diaries, and letters in the voices of people in the camps describe the hardships and emotions they experienced. Cathy has transformed personal stories into quilts through fabric, design, and color. Their presentation shows how two art forms can enhance and enrich each other.

The artists will also talk about the inspirations for their work, including interviews with Japanese Americans, photographs from the collections of Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams, autobiographies by internees, and pilgrimages to the camps.

There will be a book signing and light reception after the program.

About the Artists:
Margaret Chula, an internationally known haiku poet, lived in Kyoto Japan for 12 years where she taught creative writing at Doshisha Women’s University. Her six collections of poetry include Grinding my ink, which received the Haiku Society of America’s Book Award. Grants from Oregon Literary Arts and the Regional Arts & Culture Council have supported programs with artists, musicians, photographers and dancers.

Cathy Erickson has been making traditional and art style quilts since 1996. In 2002 she started collaborating with Margaret Chula on quilts and poetry inspired by the Japanese American internment. Cathy has exhibited in art galleries, university galleries, museums, and at local, regional, and national quilt shows.

For more information about Margaret Chula and to read poems from What Remains, visit www.margaretchula.com. For more information about Cathy Erickson or to see her quilts, visit www.cathyerickson.net/.

[Purchase a copy of What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps at the Museum Store Online]

State and federal constitutions spell out many liberties and rights, but it is people who challenge prejudice and discrimination and transform those lofty ideals into practical realities. In the era of the Patriot Act and polarizing issues such as immigration reform and gay marriage, an appreciation for and defense of civil liberties is as important as ever.

Wherever There’s a Fight captures the sweeping story of how freedom and equality have grown in California, from the gold rush right up to the precarious post-9/11 era. The book tells the often hidden stories of brave individuals who have stood up for their rights in the face of social hostility, physical violence, economic hardship, and political stonewalling. It connects the experiences of early Chinese immigrants subjected to discriminatory laws to those of professionals who challenged McCarthyism and those of people who have fought to gain equal rights in California schools: people of color, people with disabilities, and people standing up for their religious freedom. Elinson and Yogi also follow the ongoing struggles for workers’ rights and same-sex marriage. And they bring a special focus to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, including the infamous Korematsu decision, which was foreshadowed by a century of civil liberties violations and reverberates in issues we continue to grapple with today: dissent, racism, immigration, and the meaning of national security.

Join the authors for a virtual tour of significant sites in Southern California in civil rights history.

About the Authors:
Elaine Elinson was the communications director of the ACLU of Northern California and editor of the ACLU News for more than two decades. She is a coauthor of Development Debacle: The World Bank in the Philippines, which was banned by the Marcos regime. Her articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Poets and Writers, and numerous other periodicals. She is married to journalist Rene CiriaCruz and they have one son.

Stan Yogi has managed development programs for the ACLU of Northern California since 1997. He is the coeditor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California's Great Central Valley and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography. His work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, MELUS, Los Angeles Daily Journal, and several anthologies. He is married to nonprofit administrator David Carroll and lives in Oakland.

Dazzling and ambitious, this hip, multi-voiced fusion of prose, playwriting, graphic art, and philosophy spins an epic tale of America's struggle for civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown. Divided into ten novellas, one for each year, I HOTEL begins in 1968, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, students took to the streets, the Vietnam War raged, and cities burned. As Karen Yamashita's motley cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, they become caught in a riptide of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil. And by the time the survivors unite to save the International Hotel--epicenter of the Yellow Power Movement--their stories have come to define the very heart of the American experience.

There will be a book signing after the program.

About the Author:
Heralded as a "big talent" by the Los Angeles Times>/i> and praised by Newsday for "[wrestling] with profound philosophical and social issues" while delivering an "immensely entertaining story," Karen Yamashita is the recipient of an American Book Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Award. A California native who has also lived in Brazil and Japan, she teaches at the University of California-Santa Cruz, where she received the Chancellor's Award for Diversity in 2009.

From 1910 to 1940, over half a million people sailed through the Golden Gate, hoping to start a new life in America. But they did not all disembark in San Francisco; instead, most were ferried across the bay to the Angel Island Immigration Station. For many, this was the real gateway to the United States. For others, it was a prison and their final destination, before being sent home.

In Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America, historians Erika Lee and Judy Yung provide the first comprehensive history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Drawing on extensive new research, including immigration records, oral histories, and inscriptions on the barrack walls, the authors produce a sweeping yet intensely personal history of Chinese “paper sons,” Japanese picture brides, Korean students, South Asian political activists, Russian and Jewish refugees, Mexican families, Filipino repatriates, and many others from around the world.

There will be a book signing after the program.

In 1942, Virgil Westdale was a successful young flight instructor when the government ousted him from the Air Corps and demoted him to army private. Having grown up as a Japanese American midwestern farm boy, Westdale (a hapa) had his first taste of Japanese culture when he was sent to train with the all Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was ultimately transferred to the 522nd Artillery Battalion, where, as a member of the Fire Direction Center, he helped push the Germans out of Italy, rescue the "Lost Battalion" in France, and free prisoners from Dachau Death Camp in Germany.

After the war, Westdale went on to pursue a career in research and development with large corporations. He received 25 U.S. patents and earned an international award for his work with photocopier components. In retirement, he has been working for the TSA, returning to the worlds of aviation and national security.

Written for the lay reader as well as the history buff, Westdale's stories of World War II challenge preconceived notions of what we think we know about a soldier's life in Europe and offer images that go beyond the history books.

There will be a book signing after the program.

About the Authors
The son of a Caucasian mother and Japanese father, Virgil W. Westdale was born in 1918 and grew up on a midwestern farm. After the war, he obtained two university degrees and received 25 patents for his work as a scientist in research and development. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and enjoys tap and ballroom dancing.

Stephanie A. Gerdes teaches third grade in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She received her bachelor's degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and her master's degree in reading and language arts. She is active in her church, teaches piano, and enjoys history, reading, cultural events, and ballroom dancing.

Award winning author Beverly Patt will read from this moving and powerful fictional scrapbook which features a friendship that even war could not tear apart.

In April of 1942, 14-year-old Louise Krueger starts a scrapbook when her best friend, Dottie Masuoka, must move to a concentration camp for Japanese Americans in Washington state. The elaborate scrapbook design includes historical photographs and recreated period objects from Louise’s life "on the home front" and Dottie’s letters and drawings from the concentration camp.

There will be a book signing after the program.

This book recently received a starred review in School Library Journal and named to the Alan County Mock Newbery list.

Little Tokyo was home to a group of art photographers whose works were exhibited and published worldwide during the 1920s and 1930s. Sadly most of their photographs were lost or destroyed during the forced relocation of Japanese Americans.

Professor Dennis Reed began searching for these lost photographs 30 years ago, a hunt he detailed earlier this year on National Public Radio’s The Story. He will discuss the photographer’s lives, show examples of their work, including actual photographs in the Museum’s collection, and describe the recovery of this nearly lost art. As Reed says, “The Japanese American photographers who worked in Los Angeles attained a level of accomplishment and influence that was unequalled by any other group of immigrants from a single nation. They must be remembered.”

Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority is a one-hour documentary by Kimberlee Bassford that explores the remarkable political story of Patsy Mink, an Asian American woman who, battling racism and sexism, redefined American politics.

Small in stature but a giant in vision, she began her life on a Maui sugar plantation and rose to become the first Asian American woman and woman of color in the United States Congress. A firecracker and a fighter, she continually pushed the limits of what was acceptable, speaking out against the Vietnam War and entering the 1972 presidential primary, making her one of the first women to seek the nation’s highest office. She transformed America’s schools as the co-author of Title IX, the landmark legislation that opened up higher education and athletics to women.

[Purchase a copy of Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority at the Museum Store Online]

Shizue Harada came to the United States in the 1920s with her husband of arranged marriage. She did not become Sanae, a writer of a Japanese poetry form called senryu, until she had lived a full life, working factory jobs and raising two children.

Sanae's daughter, Aiko Uyeki, has compiled her mother's poignant poetry in a collection that captures Sanae's strong Buddhist faith, her wry humor and simple wisdom, her musings about growing old and her approaching death. Complementing these poems is the artwork of Amy Uyeki, Sanae's granddaughter. With word and image, a picture is painted of the life of Shizue Harada, a Meiji-era wife whose story mirrors many first generation Japanese Americans who left familiar shores to seek the American dream.

The Uyekis will present a reading of Sanae, Senryu Poet: Her Life in 5-7-5, highlighted with accompanying visual images called haiga created by her granddaughter Amy.

The reading will be followed by a workshop that explores the medium of senryu, encouraging participants to write their own poems and suggesting techniques to get started. Examples of haiga or poem painting will be shared and there will be opportunities to create both senryu and haiga. Intergenerational participation is encouraged.

This project has been made possible by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership with the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the James Irvine Foundation, with sponsorship through the Ink People Center for the Arts.

Michi Nishiura Weglyn gave up a successful career as costume designer to write the landmark book, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, that set the record straight about the World War II incarceration. This short film paints a portrait of her dynamic personality and gives a stunning human face to the struggle for civil justice.

The film recently received a Special Jury Mention at this year's Tribeca Film Festival

[Purchase a copy of Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn at the Museum Store Online]

In honor of Veterans Day, this screening is FREE!

During World War II, Japanese American soldiers of the 442nd Infantry Regiment fought not only the enemy but also prejudice and racial discrimination in the U.S. Theirs was an ironic situation, fighting for a country that had branded them as enemies. But these young men bravely volunteered and proven their loyalty as patriotic Americans. By the end of the war, the 442nd had become one of the most decorated regiments for its size and length of service in the history of the U.S. military. Following director Junichi Suzuki's previous film Toyo's Camera, which traced the experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II, this film uses archival footage and interviews with regiment members to reveal the 442nd’s little-known history.

Professor Arthur Sakamoto from the University of Texas, Austin will lead an informative talk on the sociology of the modern Japanese American family versus Japanese American families from the early 20th century.