By GWEN MURANAKA, Rafu Senior Editor
Located about a quarter-mile from one another, the Chinese American Museum, Japanese American National Museum and LA Plaza de Culturas y Artes (LA Plaza) speak to different communities but have common missions: sharing the stories and experiences of immigrant communities while grappling with the legacy of race and racism.
Starting on Friday, these three Downtown institutions will engage in a remarkable collaboration in conjunction the Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past initiative.
In a Zoom briefing on Monday hosted by Ethnic Media Services, Deborah L. Mack, Ph.D, Smithsonian director — joined by James Herr, director of the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at JANM, Leticia Rhi Buckley, CEO of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and Michael Truong, executive director of Chinese American Museum — explained the goals of the initiative.
Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past initiative explores the history and legacy of race and racism and seeks to spark positive social change and build a more equitable shared future. Downtown L.A., specifically, Little Tokyo, Chinatown and Olvera Street, are the sites for the national launch.
Mack recalled that the initiative was a response to the 2020 murder of George Floyd. She emphasized that the Smithsonian is an educational, not a social services institution, and has focused the initiative along six topics: race and wellness; race and place; race and wealth; public policy and ethics; race and art and aesthetic; and race beyond the U.S.
While a symposium was held last December in Washington, D.C., Mack explained why L.A. was selected.
“Los Angeles is one of the strongest places we felt where that breadth of American national experience is so strongly expressed,” she said. “And we turned to three of what we felt were the leading organizations that do comparable work, but they have a history of addressing issues of race and racism.
“We felt that this would not only help amplify the work that they do, but it’s a great learning experience for Smithsonian.”
Herr noted that JANM will be renaming the Democracy Center in honor of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye this Friday at 10 a.m. Following the dedication, the Democracy Center will host a plenary session, “Conversations on Race: Opening the Dialogue,” which looks at the intersection of race, wealth, wellness, and the arts. Such discussions were part of Inouye’s vision for the Democracy Center 20 years ago when it first opened.
The Hawaii senator “was a driving force behind the museum as well as the Democracy Center and envisioned a place where people could convene and have conversations around democracy, especially around the issues brought up through the Japanese American experience in the United States,” Herr said.
“It gives us the opportunity to lean on the amazing history that JANM has collected over the years, the people, the stories, the artifacts, the collections, and we lean on that story at the Democracy Center, but we can contemporize it for other audiences.”
At CAM, “Broken News,” a pop-up exhibition from Dec. 1 to 17, explores how the media encouraged the use of anti-Chinese rhetoric that provoked the Chinese Massacre of 1871.
“This is part of history in Los Angeles,” Chong explained. “You know, when we think about the Chinatown today, it was built in the 1930s, but the Chinese have been settling in Los Angeles since the 1850s. So when we think about … L.A. and Chinese American history, there’s 80 years of forgotten history.”
Buckley said that LA Plaza shares the history of Mexicans and Mexican Americans through music, dance, culinary arts and storytelling.
“It’s important to note that institutions like ours, JANM and CAM exist to reckon with our racial past, give voice to the present and affect the future,” she added.
Buckley gave the example of the landmark 1947 court case *Westminster vs. Mendez, which led to the end of segregation in Orange County.
The court case has a Japanese American connection in the family history of Janice Munemitsu, who wrote about it in her book, “The Kindness of Color.” Her grandfather, Tad Munemitsu, leased land to the Mendez family during the incarceration of World War II. The Mendez children were denied entry to the local school, and their challenge led to a landmark civil rights case that prohibited segregation in California’s public schools.
“We look at some of our political leaders and the reality of the harms of racist rhetoric and behavior that has surfaced in a really awful and hard light. At LA Plaza, the way we see it is we are a convener of these conversations,” Buckley said.
As the Smithsonian embarks on the initiative, Mack acknowledged political challenges faced in teaching issues of race and racism, particularly in regions where there is significant pushback against such dialogue.
“Having said that, we’re seeing a real desire to receive assistance on how to better or more clearly articulate and more effectively share this kind of information reflected in programs,” she said.
Teachers have also been responsive to Our Shared Future.
“K through 12, educators who are being literally punished for raising these issues have said to us that they use the work of the Smithsonian and they use the work of their partner organizations,” Mack said. “In a kind of defense, they’re saying if this museum is working on this subject area and sharing it and educating the public, if the Smithsonian is doing this work, shouldn’t we as well?”
On Saturday, Dec. 9, and Sunday, Dec. 10, CAM will present LA 1871, a symposium and special performance that will focus on the history of the Chinese Massacre of 1871. Speakers will provide historical context on Saturday, and Day 2 features music by award-winning composer Nathan Wang.
Our Shared Future Los Angeles will conclude with a free family celebration taking place at CAM, JANM, and LA Plaza, with offerings from other Southern California museums, including the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, Columbia Memorial Space Center, and the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA), on Sunday, Dec. 17, from noon to 4 p.m.
More information at http://oursharedfuture.si.edu, www.janm.org, www.lapca.org and http://camla.org.