LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum celebrates the passage of the Japanese American Confinement Education (JACE) Act (H.R. 1931) by the U.S. House of Representatives, thanks to the leadership of the bill’s sponsor Representative Doris Matsui. 

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Japanese American National Museum celebrates the passage of the Amache National Historic Site Act (H.R. 2497) into law by President Biden on Friday, March 18, 2022. This law designates the Amache incarceration site in Granada, Colorado, as part of the National Park System, preserves the site for future generations, and expands the story and history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II.

LOS ANGELES - The Japanese American National Museum (JANM) is deeply saddened by the passing of famed architect Gyo Obata, who designed JANM’s 84,000-square-foot Pavilion. Obata was 99 when he passed away on Tuesday, March 8, 2022 in St. Louis, Missouri.

LOS ANGELES – From the confines of concentration camps and locales under martial law to the battlegrounds of Europe, Japanese Americans drew on their faith to survive forced removal, indefinite incarceration, unjust deportation, family separation, and war combat at a time when their race and religion were seen as threats to national security. 

LOS ANGELES – This week, the Japanese American National Museum commemorates the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. When President Franklin Roosevelt signed it on February 19, 1942, he launched the wrongful imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As JANM remembers this milestone, I think about my boyhood behind barbed wire. We carried anger about being wrenched from our homes. We carried loyalty into battle and federal court. We carried uncertainty about returning to our friends and routines. But we did not lose hope.