Restoring this important funding would help preserve the original sites of the Heart Mountain, Manzanar, Minidoka, and Tule Lake concentration camps for future generations. The history and significance of the incarceration should be remembered so that its lessons guide the future.

This year’s festival highlights heroes of all ages who have strengthened our community and made it special in big and small ways.

Featured guests include Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author of "Love in the Library" 📚 @maggietokudahall.bsky.social

Red graphic flyer with white text title that reads, "Nikkei Children's Book Festival. Saturday, May 9, 2026. 9 am-3 pm. General $10 JANM Members FREE Youth under 18 FREE." White logo of the Japanese American National Museum at the top center. Sponsor logos at the bottom are shown for the Port of Long Beach and the Rafu Shimpo. An illustrated frog is shown reading a book in the bottom left corner.

Celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month, Children’s Book Week, and Kodomo no hi (Japanese Children’s Day) with our second annual Nikkei Children’s Book Festival! 📚🌈

Get tickets: www.janm.org/events/2026-...

Preview the StoryFiles of George Takei, June Berk, Takashi Hoshizaki, and Mary Murakami in JANM's Democracy Center tomorrow.

See how StoryFile technology preserves real, first-person stories from @georgetakei.bsky.social and other Japanese Americans unjustly incarcerated during WWII
Coming to JANM later this year. Try it out at free pop-up preview Saturday, 3/21

The Storybook Life of June Aochi Berk June Aochi Berk from StoryFiles Always be able to look back and say, “At least I didn’t lead no humdrum life.” —Forrest Gump If you were to ask June Aochi Berk how she would describe her anything-but-humdrum life, she would most likely compare it to Forrest Gump’s: “Like a box of chocolates, you never know …

Read how optimism, resilience, and community spirit shaped her extraordinary journey, in this article by Sharon Yamato, then come check out the Storyfiles preview with June and the others featured, including actor, author, and activist George Takei! discovernikkei.org/e...
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At 93, June Aochi Berk looks back on a life that has ranged from wartime incarceration at Santa Anita “assembly” center and Rohwer concentration camp to becoming a Nisei Week Queen, film extra, and beloved volunteer at the @jamuseum.bsky.social and other Southern California community
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Special sneak peek this Saturday, March 21:

Four people seated for a panel discussion in front of an audience

At today's Press Freedom Summit, JANM CEO @annburroughs.bsky.social, @marielgarza.bsky.social, @kenwhite.bsky.social, @saracatania.com discuss how to make the case for why freedom of the press matters to non-journalists.

Today the Democracy Center at @jamuseum.bsky.social welcomes the Regional Mayors' field hearing about the human cost of ICE deportation in our communities.

Having a great time ar Tsunagi Matsuri! Food, entertainment, and family fun at JACCC Plaza in Little Tokyo. Stop by JANM's booth to say hi, make some origami, and win some swag. tsunagi.matsuri

Crown City Delivers a History Lesson Cloaked in Mystery An opulent dinner set beneath cherry blossom trees. A racist attack in front of the exclusive Hotel Green. The theft of a painting from a Japanese artist’s studio. A deceased body discovered in The Arroyo. Turn-of-the-20th-century Pasadena, nicknamed Crown City, comes to life through the eyes of 18-year-old Ryunosuke Wada, a newly arrived immigrant from …

Two real-life people are featured in award-winning author Naomi Hirahara’s third book in her Japantown Mystery series, "Crown City." Learn the background of the novel and how they fit into the story! discovernikkei.org/e...
Naomi Hirahara will be at @jamuseum.bsky.social on Mar 21! Click for info.

Memory as power and resistance Dear arts writers and friends,

Memory as power and resistance
open.substack.com/pub/rabkinfo...

On the Cusp of America’s 250th, Communities Push to Reclaim Their Narratives As the Trump administration pushes to rewrite the nation’s history, communities across the country are pushing back against who gets to tell it.

We’re nearing the 250th anniversary of the United States, and it requires all of us to ask a fundamental question: Who gets to decide what this country remembers, and who gets to decide what it forgets or erases?
americancommunitymedia.org/community/on...

February 19, 2026 INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY As survivors and descendants of the mass removals, detention, deportation, and family separation targeting our community during WWII, we refuse to stand by idly while our friends and neighbors are violently disappeared, forcibly removed, mass incarcerated, and separated from family members. We decry the murders of community members and at least 37 people in ICE custody and enforcement in 2025. We reject false narratives that state violence is "unavoidable," a "justifiable military action," necessary for "national security"—the same arguments used as they forced our parents, grandparents, aunties, and uncles into U.S. concentration camps in 1942. On this Day of Remembrance, we call on Japanese Americans and all people who believe in "Never Again" to demand justice for those we have lost—on the streets and hidden away in ICE detention centers. To break this cycle of state violence. To rise up and resist, together. We bravely commit to being the allies our familes needed during WWII. STOP REPEATING HISTORY. #TsuruForSolidarity #FreeFamilies #FreeThemAll

84 years ago today, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, ordering the removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, about two-thirds of whom were US citizens. The Day of Remembrance this year comes as we see DHS buying land and warehouses for more camps now.

Caption from the Japanese American National Museum: Ink drawing by Harold Kakudo titled "A Moment in History" Executive Order 9066. Camp scene of several incarcerees gathered around and saluting the flag. Bottom center of drawing reads "...With Liberty and Justice For All."

Feb 19, 1942: Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. #DayofRemembrance #EO9066

"The presidential order launched the unjust incarceration of over 125,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps across the US during WW2," @jamuseum.bsky.social. blog.janm.org/2026/02/03/d...

Credit: Home Movies of Forced Removal from Guadalupe, CA / 1942. Filmed by Franklin Johnson, Gift of Grace Shinoda Nakamura, in partnership with the Academy Film Archive, funded in part by the National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Program. 97.234.1

In 1942, over 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry were unjustly incarcerated in America's concentration camps and deprived of their civil rights and due process. Sadly, there is an absolute parallel between what happened then and what’s happening today to immigrant communities throughout the nation.

Resist: Kodomo no Tame Ni Kodomo no Tame Ni—“for the sake of our children” is a phrase often cited by Japanese Americans to describe the sacrifices our grandparents and great-grandparents made in order for us to live in America. I think of that phrase in the context of what is happening today in our country. In 1942 it was the …

Hot off the presses is Gwen Muranaka's latest comic on being Nikkei! The time for “Kodomo no Tame Ni”—“for the sake of our children,” is now.

On Cusp of 250th Anniversary – The Push to Reclaim Community Narratives As the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, communities push back against efforts to erase nonwhite history. Speakers discuss reclaiming community narratives amid censorship of museums, monuments, and…

ACoM News Briefing Recap
As the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, communities are reclaiming histories threatened by censorship, monument removals, and curriculum limits—working to preserve a fuller American story.
🔗 buff.ly/fgbxkyc
#Community #History #ACoM

What Must Be Done? The Battle Against Fascism Podcast Episode · It Could Happen Here · 02/05/2026 · 39m

Last month the Japanese American National Museum asked me to deliver a keynote speech on what is necessary to combat authoritarianism and preserve democracy. You can listen to it and the Q&A that followed here:

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Japanese American soldiers once branded 'enemy aliens' to be promoted posthumously Japanese American soldiers will be promoted in a ceremony, decades after they died fighting for the U.S. during World War II despite having been branded “enemy aliens.”

Remember their sacrifice for our country.

Daniel Betsui
Jenhatsu Chinen
Robert Murata
Grover Nagaji
Akio Nishikawa
Hiroichi Tomita
Howard Urabe

May they rest in peace and their sacrifice never forgotten. cc: @jamuseum.bsky.social

abc7chicago.com/story/japane...

The National Park Service (NPS) has removed an exhibit called “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The decision comes after president Trump to remove “corrosive ideology” from cultural heritage venues.

buff.ly/ni1GGsk

MPR News on Instagram: "WARNING: The following video includes visuals that may be disturbing. Just after 9 a.m. Saturday in Minneapolis' Whittier neighborhood, multiple federal immigration agents wer... 119K likes, 8,338 comments - mprnews on January 24, 2026: "WARNING: The following video includes visuals that may be disturbing. Just after 9 a.m. Saturday in Minneapolis' Whittier neighborhood, mult...

Here’s the video. It’s the American way to gang up on a man and shoot him? Where’s the threat?

Sorry, it is in fact the American way.

In solidarity with museums taking a stand ❤️

Slavery exhibits at President's House in Philadelphia removed after Trump administration directive Crews dismantled plaques telling the stories of the nine enslaved people who lived in the President's House and were owned by George Washington.

The attempts at the wholesale erasure of history will not help us achieve a more just America. We must ensure that history is told fully and truthfully, and carry the lessons of history forward.

6abc.com/post/philade...

Alabama uses Japanese American Internment era law to charge immigrants who don’t self-register Alabama is finding new ways to criminally charge undocumented immigrants

What is happening today harkens back to the registration of the Issei, which was a precursor to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. They also harken back to the scapegoating of the Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans leading up to WWII.
www.al.com/news/2026/01...

Scot Nakagawa will be a panelist at our symposium,
Echoes of History: Inspiring Civic Action and Building Democracy, this Friday!

Read his piece below and get tickets to the symposium: www.janm.org/events/2026-...

Alabama uses Japanese American Internment era law to charge immigrants who don’t self-register Alabama is finding new ways to criminally charge undocumented immigrants

Do we need to say it louder? Here. Louder.

" Federal courts in Alabama are using a law last applied during the U.S. internment [incarceration] of people of Japanese descent during World War II to charge immigrants who don’t register themselves..."

www.al.com/news/2026/01...

Echoes of History will explore how culture, organizing, and collective memory push back against authoritarianism.

If this post found you, consider this an invitation to use our discount code CCFECHOES for $50 off (in-person) or $5 off (virtual).

Tickets: janm.org/democracy