LBS 2340

The Japanese American National Museum and its Significance as an Ethnic Museum

During World War II, many minorities were displaced and mistreated, the Japanese American National Museum focuses on the impact of World War II on Japanese Americans as they play an important part of United States’s history. The museum itself displays exhibitions as well as hosting programs, and sharing resources to share the untold story of Americans in the US of Japanese ancestry as a means to spread awareness and represent a culture that has often been forgotten throughout history. There is significance to the museum being in Los Angeles as well, since that was one of the many spots that had been used to gather and transport Japanese Americans to concentration camps and “ghettos” for them to live in, even small details like this have been thought out and incorporated into the museums overall educational purpose. But education and awareness are not where JANM stops, as a tool, JANM uses their platform to create documentaries and speak on social justice issues when those issues are ignored or brushed over. Their purpose ultimately leads to creating a more just America.

Museums in themselves are spaces created to exhibit history, whether that’s in: art, cultures, or society as a whole. These spaces have extended from the physical architecture to digital websites where you can experience that same knowledge and memory. Typical US History museums spread an “idealized” version of ethnic history, as these spaces are curated pieces of artifacts and research rather than firsthand experience. Carneiro and Johnson state “The ethnic past aims to display an idealized past that is fixed

and forever gone”. Ethnic museums specifically, have been seen as an extension

or semi-permanent exhibition in big name museums like the Los Angeles County

National History Museum which had first shown the Japanese American Soldier exhibition, and it was this exhibition that sparked the idea for JANM. A source like the Japanese American National Museum is a permanent home for minority memories to be preserved and shared throughout generations. JANM is a part of the “ethnic now”, which are institutions that use “culturally identifiable features to convey movement, fluidity, transformation, reinterpretation, and the re-invention of ethnic identity” (Carneiro, Johnson). Meaning these newer museums that focus on ethnic stories run with the intention of sharing the unfiltered, unidealized version of ethnic stories. Walking through a place like LACMA compared to JANM is different because in JANM you can feel the grief and emotion carried through each story, where art and history are no longer idealized rather meant to evoke emotion and the need to create change within yourself and your community. The emotional impact is what museums like JANM count on, whether that’s through representation or audience connection, or sympathy from groups that can’t relate but want to learn and spread awareness.

Museums on a larger, global level are a fantastic way to educate and make an impact as large as the organization. But all organizations start somewhere, typically with a seed of an idea in a small community. These large organizations all come from a small beginning, starting with an idea and a purpose to represent the unrepresented. Small nonprofit organizations have a bigger impact when they start within a community and gain recognition for the impact they have made within their county, then their state, and eventually they are able to turn themselves into a larger organization with more funding to expand not only physically but digitally. This is very similar to how the Japanese American National Museum had developed, since World War II had a great impact on the Asian community in Los Angeles specifically. They used this seed of wanting to educate the people of Los Angeles on the city’s history and gained enough traction to expand on a national level. Common Ground: The Heart of Community was JANM’s opening exhibition in their Pavilion. This exhibition was all about promoting intersectional and immigrant stories by finding the common ground between them all which leads to creating community. This is especially important in a small community like LA because the city is known for being a sort of “melting pot” of cultures. Sharing immigrant stories through an intersection view leads to massive amounts of representation, connection, and awareness within smaller communities. This creates bonds into one big community that makes up LA, which supports the importance of starting within your community in order to create a bigger impact within your nation.

Starting off as a small non-profit, the Japanese American National Museum had come to be from a group of Japanese-American World War II veterans in collaboration with a few Little Tokyo businessmen that had the intention of sharing the untold stories of Japanese Americans in the US during World War II. They wanted to share and preserve these experiences as they were an important part of US history, since many forget immigrant and minorities’ experiences tend to be the building blocks that make up American history. JANM’s foundational concepts rest on dedicating itself “to documenting and presenting the core Japanese American experience from the point of view of the participants’’, as created by JANM’s Chief Curator Dr. James Hirabayashi. As the museum’s popularity and importance progressed, they had soon become a national organization where artifacts and pieces of Japanese American history had come to create permanent residence. Their mission from the start has been to “promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience”, with the ongoing programs and exhibitions they have been able to uphold this goal since 1985.

Overall, I believe there has been such a big impact from smaller organizations that focus on oppression against minority groups. Seeing JANM’s progression as an organization looking to educate and preserve untold stories of a certain culture is truly something to admire and applaud. It is saddening to see the mistreatment Japanese Americans had to endure not that long ago in my very own city, but it warms my heart knowing there’s an organization actively holding exhibitions and programs to educate people on this institutional oppression because it leads to creating spark within individuals. That same spark is what was used to create that national museum that is JANM and so seeing that only excites me to see what the spark JANM has created for others can do.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ryokzbx84V64GaTOc16RqtvQ7afyBxgEcaPTz0wkbo4/edit?usp=sharing