Meet award-winning author and illustrator Allen Say for the launching of his new book, Erika-san, about an American girl’s discoveries while visiting Japan.

The book will be available for sale in January 2009 through the Museum Store.

Other Family Events at the National Museum

January 4: Oshogatsu (New Years) Family Festival *FREE ALL DAY

January 17: WOK and ROLL Family Cooking Adventures

February 14 – Target Family Free Saturday: Be Animated!

March 14 – Target Family Free Saturday: Say Cheese!

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

April 11 – Target Family Free Saturday: What's Cooking?

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.

Greg Robinson and Elena Tajima Creef will present excerpts from their new anthology MINE OKUBO: FOLLOWING HER OWN ROAD. They will discuss Miné Okubo's life and work, including the creation and influence of her pioneering camp memoir CITIZEN 13660.

Hear from the author Cathy Irwin of the new book Twice Orphaned: Voices from the Children's Village of Manzanar , and from former orphans of the Manzanar's Children's Village, the sole orphanage in all of the ten relocation centers during World War II.

The panel will consist of:
Cathy Irwin (moderator): Dr. Irwin is assistant professor of English in the Modern Languages Department of the University of La Verne and the author of Twice Orphaned: Voices from the Children’s Village of Manzanar.

Tamo Isozaki (panelist): Born in 1926, Mr. Isozaki , lived from the age of nine in northern California orphanages with his siblings until coming to live at the Children’s Village in the Manzanar War Relocation Center during World War II. He has served as an advisor for the Children’s Village Oral History Project at California State University, Fullerton, and his interview appears in Twice Orphaned.

Annie Shiraishi Sakamoto (panelist): Sent to live in a Los Angeles orphanage as a baby, Ms. Sakamoto entered the Children’s Village at Manzanar at age three and left at age six to live in a foster home. Her interview is included in Twice Orphaned.

Celeste Loi Teodor (panelist): After being raised in a Los Angeles-based orphanage, Ms. Teodor came to live in the Children’s Village at Manzanar when she had just turned six years of age. At war’s end she lived in a series of foster homes until reaching the age of eighteen. An interview with her is contained in Twice Orphaned.

Wilbur Sato (panelist): Born in 1929, Mr. Sato was evicted along with all other families on Terminal Island in the Los Angeles area and was later incarcerated in the Manzanar camp. His barracks home was located in Block 29, close to the Children’s Village, with whose residents he frequently interacted. An advisor for the Children’s Village Oral History Project at Cal State Fullerton, he has written a poem about the Village that is featured in Twice Orphaned.

Art Hansen (commentator): An emeritus professor in history and Asian American studies at Cal State Fullerton, Dr. Hansen conceived of and has served as the coordinator for the Children’s Village Oral History Project at CSUF’s Center for Oral and Public History.

Following the panel, there will be a book-signing, with Cathy Irwin, for Twice Orphaned. Copies of the book can be purchased through the Museum Store.

Picture Credit: Ansel Adams, photographer
Library of Congress, Prints Photographs Division,
Title: Mr. Matsumoto and children at children's garden, Manzanar Relocation Center, CA
#LC-DIG-pprs-00362-DLC

The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, set for April 30 through May 7, 2009, is an annual production of Visual Communications, the nation’s premier Asian Pacific American media arts center. The National Museum and the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy are honored to support their efforts by hosting programs that explores the diversity of the Asian American experience.

The Film Festival's NCPD slate includes a highly-anticipated afternoon program of innovative video works by seniors from Little Tokyo's DISKovery Center; and a special evening retrospective screening of favorites from Visual Communications' groundbreaking Armed With a Camera Fellowship, complete with artists from the past seven cycles in attendance. A complete program schedule, including the detailed program line-up of Festival programs at the NCPD will be available starting early April. For tickets and program information, please visit www.vconline.org

John Christgau will be signing his book Kokomo Joe, which is about the first Japanese American jockey in the United States.

The first Japanese American jockey, Kokomo Joe burst like a comet on the American horse-racing scene in the summer of 1941. As war with Japan loomed, Yoshio “Kokomo Joe” Kobuki won race after race, stirring passions far beyond merely the envy and antagonism of other jockeys. His is a story of the American dream catapulting headlong into the nightmare of a nation gripped by wartime hysteria and xenophobia. The story that unfolds in Kokomo Joe is at once inspiring, deeply sad, and richly ironic—and remarkably relevant in our own climate of nationalist fervor and racial profiling.

Sent to Japan from Washington State after his mother and three siblings died of the Spanish flu, Kobuki continued to nurse his dream of the American good life. Because of his small stature, his ambition steered him to a future as a star jockey. John Christgau narrates Kobuki’s rise from lowly stable boy to reigning star at California fairs and in the bush leagues. He describes how, at the height of the jockey’s fame, even his flight into the Sonora Desert could not protect him from the government’s espionage and sabotage dragnet. And finally he recounts how, after three years of internment, Kokomo Joe tried to reclaim his racing success, only to fall victim to still-rampant racism, a career-ending injury, and cancer.

John Christgau, a retired English instructor and lecturer, is the author of many books, including The Gambler and the Bug Boy: 1939 Los Angeles and the Untold Story of a Horse Racing Fix (Nebraska 2007) and Tricksters in the Madhouse: Lakers vs. Globetrotters, 1948, available in a Bison Books edition.

Click here to listen to John Christgau talk about Kokomo Joe on NPR

Purchase a copy of the book from the Museum Store Online >>

In honor of Memorial Day, please join us for a panel discussion on Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJA) Vietnam Veterans; moderated by Vincent H. Okamoto. This is the first time a panel on the longest most controversial war has been assembled from the perspective of AJA’s. Following the discussion, Vincent H. Okamoto will autograph his first published novel, “Wolfhound Samurai”

Our panelists include:
Kenneth Hayashi - Logistical Services
David Miyoshi - Marine
Jerry Yamamoto - Stateside service
Lawrence Takahashi - combat veteran
Gary Hayakawa, paratrooper

Presented in collaboration with JA Living Legacy.

Purchase copies of this book at the Museum Store Online >>

FREE!

Asian Americans have become a driving force in the contemporary comics renaissance, as artists, writers—and fans.

But there's one place where Asians are still underrepresented in comics: Between the four-color covers themselves.

That's why, in Secret Identities, top Asian American writers, artists and comics professionals have come together to create 26 original stories centered around Asian American Superheroes; stories set in a shadow history of our country, from the opening of the West to the election of the first minority president, and exploring ordinary Asian American life from a decidedly extraordinary perspective.

Join the editors:
*JEFF YANG, founder of the pioneering Asian American periodical "aMagazine" and author of the biweekly column "Asian Pop" for the San Francisco Chronicle
*PARRY SHEN, best known for his lead role in the movie "Better Luck Tomorrow"
*KEITH CHOW, freelance writer and comics-in-education specialist.
*JERRY MA, the founder of the indie comics studio Epic Proportions

--along with several contributors as they share previews of their respective stories through slide shows and video trailers. Make sure to stay to celebrate the LA premier!

Copies of SECRET IDENTITIES will be on hand for purchase and will be signed by the editors/contributors during the reception afterwards.

Notable contributors:

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY
*Greg Pak: (writer of “Planet Hulk”, “World War Hulk”, “Skaar – Son of Hulk”)
*Bernard Chang: (artist on “Iron Man” and “Wonder Woman”)
*Francis Tsai: (artist on “Marvel Comics Presents” and “Heroes for Hire”)
*Greg LaRocque: (artist on “Marvel Team Up” and “The Flash”)
*Sonny Liew: (Image’s “Liquid City” Anthology)
*Kazu Kibuishi: (editor of Image’s “Flight” anthology)
*Christine Norrie: (creator of “Breaking Up”)
*Tak Toyoshima: (creator of first Asian American strip for United Feature Syndicate: “Secret Asian Man”)
*Cliff Chiang: (artist on “Green Arrow/Black Canary” for DC Comics)
*Dustin Nguyen: (artist on “Detective Comics” for DC Comics)

LITERARY WORLD
*Jamie Ford: (“Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” from Ballantine/Random House)
*Gene Yang: (“American Born Chinese” - National Book Award finalist, Best Book of the Year: Publisher’s Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, School Library Journal, amazon.com, NPR Holiday pick, 2007 Michael L. Printz Award winner)

FILM/TV WORLD
*Mike Kang: (director of “The Motel” and “West 32nd”)
*Lynn Chen: (actress from “Saving Face” and “Lakeview Terrace”)
*Keiko Agena: (actress from “Gilmore Girls” and “Major Movie Star”)
*Yul Kwon: (winner of “Survivor: Cook Islands”)
*Leonardo Nam: (actor from “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”)
*Sung Kang: (actor from “Better Luck Tomorrow” and “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”)
*Kelly Hu: (actress from “X2: X-Men United” and “The Mummy Returns”)
*Dustin Tri Nguyen: (actor from “21 Jump Street” and “Finishing the Game”)

To view the official trailer, go to SI Official Trailer

Purchase copies of the book at the Museum Store Online >>