Why Our Story Must Be Told: 2025 Survey Data on Public Knowledge of the World War II Japanese American Incarceration

Join JANM and the Japanese American Citizens League for a powerful virtual program that unveils new data on the awareness of the World War II Japanese American incarceration experience within Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.

Karthick Ramakrishnan, director of the AAPI Data project at UC Berkeley, will provide an overview of the findings, which reveal critical gaps and underscore the need for education and discussion. He will then join Karen Umemoto, professor of Asian American Studies and Urban Planning at UCLA, for a conversation about how the Japanese American and AANHPI communities can use the survey’s findings to advocate for more support to tell their stories. At a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are under increasing scrutiny and rollback, these findings offer a timely opportunity to reaffirm the importance of historically grounded education.

The nationwide survey is presented by the Japanese American Citizens League and The Japanese American National Museum using the Amplify AAPI Monthly Survey, drawing from NORC’s Amplify AAPI® Panel, designed to be representative of the US Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander household population. Online and telephone interviews were offered in English, the Chinese dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Korean, with 1,177 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders aged 18 and older living in the United States. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.6 percentage points.