“Share Your Story” is the theme as Target Free Family Saturday celebrates the exhibition “Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History” on July 13 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum, 100 N. Central Ave. (at First Street) in Little Tokyo.
All-day activities include creating a memory book to jot down stories about you and your family; making a family portrait collage; and folding an origami camera at Ruthie’s Origami Corner.
The schedule is as follows:
11 a.m.-2 p.m.: Make a salad and salad dressing that will soon become a family favorite with Kidding Around the Kitchen.
12 and 2 p.m.: Bring your memories and prepare to write. Instructor Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo will help you write your own family stories.
1 p.m.: Take a tour of “Visible & Invisible” with curator Dr. Duncan Williams.
1:30 p.m.: A “mixed” reading with Leslie Ryan, author of “I Am Flippish,” and Heidi Cole, author of “Am I a Color?”
2 p.m.: A screening of the documentary “Searchlight Serenade,” which explores the big bands that were formed by Japanese Americans while incarcerated during World War II.
2:30 p.m.: We Tell Stories will perform multicultural tales in “Proud to Be Me!”
3 p.m.: Allen Say will read his new book, “The Favorite Daughter.”
Generously sponsored by Target, these special Saturdays are filled with fun activities giving families unique ways to learn, play, and grow together. For more information, call (213) 625-0414 or visit www.janm.org.
About “The Favorite Daughter”
Yuriko, who is half Japanese, hates her name when the children make fun of it and call her “Eureka!” The teasing makes her want to hide, to retreat even from the art projects she used to love. She says she wants “an American name.”
Fortunately, she has a patient, kind father who finds gentle ways of drawing her out and reminding her of the traditions they share that have always brought her joy: walks in lovely Golden Gate Park, lunch at their favorite sushi restaurant, watching the fog blow in off San Francisco Bay. It’s more than enough to face down her challenges with confidence.
Say has taken another moving story from his personal experience and translated it to the universal. This tale, dedicated with love to his daughter, is one for all parents who want their children to feel pride in their heritage, and to know their own greatest sources of strength and inspiration.
A recipient of the Caldecott Medal for “Grandfather’s Journey,” Say also won a Caldecott Honor and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for “The Boy of the Three-Year Nap” (written by Dianne Snyder). His other books include “The Bicycle Man,” “Tea with Milk,” “Tree of Cranes,” hailed by The Horn Book in a starred review as “the achievement of a master in his prime, and “Drawing from Memory,” which received four starred reviews.
Born in Yokohama in 1937, Say was an apprentice to cartoonist Noro Shinpei. After moving to the U.S., he studied at Chouinard Art Institute and Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and later at UC Berkeley. He initially pursued a career in commercial photographer, but the publication of his first book, “Dr. Smith’s Safari,” in 1972 eventually led to him becoming a full-time illustrator. JANM held the first retrospective of his work in children’s literature in 2000. He lives in Portland, Ore.