Among the participants in the groundbreaking were (from left) Darlene Kuba, founder and president of Kuba & Associates; City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado; JANM President and CEO Ann Burroughs; actor/activist George Takei; and JANM Board of Trustees Chair William T. Fujioka.
By J.K. YAMAMOTO
RAFU SHIMPO
Leaders of the Japanese American National Museum on July 11 held a groundbreaking for the new Pavilion and expressed their determination to continue their mission despite the current political climate.
The museum’s main building will undergoing extensive renovation, including a new core exhibition, and is expected to reopen in late 2026. Until then, programs will continue at JANM’s Democracy Center and other locations throughout the Los Angeles area.
Among those taking part in the symbolic groundbreaking in the museum’s Mineta Democracy Plaza were Ann Burroughs, JANM president and CEO; William T. Fujioka, JANM Board of Trustees chair; Kenko Sone, consul general of Japan in Los Angeles; Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside); Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado; actor/activist George Takei, JANM Board of Trustees chair emeritus; and Amy Watanabe, vice president of Nakatomi PR.
The museum’s supporters gathered in Aratani Central Hall for a reception and program, followed by tours of the empty spaces that will become new galleries.
“Once completed, this renovation project will feature our new core exhibition, ‘In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Dreams of Democracy,’” said Fujioka. “This project will enhance our ability to pursue JANM’s mission and to use our voice to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the journey, struggles, and successes of the Japanese American community.
“As JANM moves forward, we continue to honor our first-generation immigrant grandparents, who left Japan for better life, who were faced with immense injustice during World War II. We also honor our second-generation parents, many who fought during the war, while their families were behind barbed-wire fences. But also equally important, those who stood up against the injustice …
“I think we all know we’re in a dangerous place in time right now,” he concluded. “This harkens back to the darkness of 1942 when the Japanese American community was persecuted and deprived of civil rights and justice. Few came to our defense, few spoke out.
“As an institution and community, we cannot make the same mistake. JANM must use its voice and actions to support all oppressed, ethnic, cultural, religious LGBTQ and immigrant communities. JANM is and will always be a beacon of social justice.”
Consul General Kenko Sone, who has served in Los Angeles for two years, called JANM “an anchor organization for the Japanese American community” that plays an important role, “especially under the current complex and difficult situation.”
“Japanese Americans have not only contributed to a deeper and future understanding between the people of Japan and the United States, but also inspired the Japanese people in Japan, as well as in the United States,” he said. “So I really hope that the new permanent exhibition will be more future-oriented to pass on the history of Japanese Americans to the future generations and continue to greatly strengthen U.S.-Japan relations and mutual understanding.”
Sone announced, ”I will be ending my term in Los Angeles and will return to Japan in August … I’m much looking forward to the new permanent exhibition. No matter where I will be in the future, I’ll be back.”
Stories of Courage, Resilience
Takano, a member of JANM’s Honorary Board, said, “It’s an honor to be standing here today, not only as a member of Congress, but as a Japanese American whose family story lives in the legacy of this institution. The Japanese National Museum is more than just a physical space … It is a place where our history reminds us of our collective responsibility.
“For more than three decades, JANM has preserved stories too often pushed aside — stories of courage, resilience, and yes, betrayal by our own government. My family was incarcerated at Heart Mountain and Tule Lake. They were mostly American citizens … They were told they were a threat to the country they loved. That chapter is painful, but it belongs to all of us …
“JANM ensures that it is never forgotten, never repeated, and never erased. This renovation and reimagined core exhibition are not just about architecture or artifacts. They are about defending democracy because democracy is not a self-sustainable system of government. It must be nurtured, protected …
“We are living through a time when the foundations of our democracy are being tested. Basic rights are under attack. I never thought I would see … the idea of citizenship would be so destabilized, whether it’s naturalized citizenship or the idea that we could take away from people birthright citizenship …
“Historical facts are being taken out from classrooms. Immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and communities of color are being targeted … This museum stands as a warning and a promise. It continues to be the light in the darkness of the current moment, a voice of truth in the face of misinformation … I’m so proud that an institution from my community has insisted that we will tell the whole truth of an uncomfortable past and not bow to the threats of those who wish to erase it.”
Jurado, whose district includes Little Tokyo, called it “a historic and vibrant neighborhood rooted in immigrant experience and grounded in the values of care and community. Little Tokyo has withstood generations of displacement, exclusion, and cultural erasure, and still continues to rise. It is truly a gem in the city, a cultural and historical and spiritual anchor, not just for Japanese Americans, but for all Angelenos.
“As a daughter of immigrants, as a first Filipino to serve on the City Council, and as someone who believes in the power of place and memory, this moment is profoundly personal. The Japanese American National Museum is … more than a cultural institution. It’s a guardian of truth, a beacon of justice, and an anchor for not only Los Angeles, but the nation. While it tells a uniquely Japanese American story, it also tells a story of America itself — survival, protest, solidarity, and the enduring power of community.”
Noting that ICE agents had been seen in Little Tokyo, Jurado said, “Folks are now carrying their passports despite being citizens … So in this neighborhood that’s targeted by state violence … I stand with you in this affirmation of this exhibit and of this community, because institutions like JANM and the Japanese American community, they lead with clarity and courage.”
Burroughs said that the new exhibition will tell “the full story” of Japanese American history with “a new interpretion”: “It’ll tell the story of the incredibly courageous Nisei soldiers, but it will also tell the story of those who chose to resist the draft … because they believed that that was their equal duty as Americans … We’ll tell the story of what happened during camp … what happened when they came back, rebuilt their lives and helped to rebuild this country after the Second World War.
“And we also tell the incredible courage of the Japanese American community as they joined and helped to form the Asian American movement as they stood strong side-by-side with leaders and activists in the civil rights movement. We’ll also tell the story of how the Japanese American community was amongst the first to stand up (for Muslim Americans) after 9/11.”
“The Fires of Racial Revolution”
Takei directed the audience’s attention to the building across the plaza, the former home of Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple as well as JANM’s original location. “It was built in 1925 for the Japanese American Buddhists … These people had a vision, but it’s also a vision that incorporates where they were here in the United States, here in Los Angeles, here in the Little Tokyo community … It’s a statement that we embrace because it deals with embracing diversity, working together with humanism, and working as a unit, embracing the ideals of our democracy.”
As a child, Takei attended weddings and funerals at the temple. “There was a Caucasian man who discovered Buddhism and studied it, embraced it, and became a minister, Rev. Julius Goldwater … When the horror of the internmentt came, we were all assembled right there on Central Avenue … jammed with people with luggage, families, children … This was the place, Ground Zero for the beginning of our incarceration.
“Little Tokyo was empty. It was a vast, vacant, dead community … But very quickly, Little Tokyo’s vacancy was filled by Southern African Americans who to came work in the war factories. Little Tokyo changed its name to Bronzeville. They were very religious people, and the leader of the Bronzeville community approached Rev. Goldwater and asked if they could borrow the sanctuary … for their Sunday services. Rev. Goldwater, a very humanitarian and sharing person, opened those classic Buddhist temple doors … So during our internment, this Buddhist temple rocked with the hand claps and hallelujahs of Southern Baptist services.
“When the war ended, we all came back and it became a Buddhist temple again. Shortly after that, they built a new temple down the street. This building was vacant … We were granted the right to use that building for a dollar a day by the City of Los Angeles, and we adaptively transformed the interior as our first museum.
“We were going to hold our grand opening on April 29, 1992, right in front of the ceremonial entrance … But on that morning, the air was filled with the shriek of police sirens … We saw dark columns from the fires of outrage in Watts … Los Angeles was burning up because of the trial of the former policemen who had beaten an African American driver, Rodney King … Police told us that we could not have an outdoor event, so it was moved indoors … The Japanese American National Museum was born in the fires of racial revolution.”
Fast-forwarding to the present, Takei continued, “Just two weeks ago, this administration sent the National Guard with the Marines into Los Angeles. They were all there on Central Avenue. It’s being repeated again. Being an American involves our citizenship, which goes our responsibility … and we must speak up and rise again.”
The reopening of the museum next year means “more space to tell the story, more opportunities to learn from history, more chances to say ‘Never again,’” he said. “But that means … our democracy is us. We bear the responsibility for it being meaningful, we the people. That is our lesson, and that’s the assignment that we must take with us.”
Watanabe, speaking as a Yonsei, said, “My family’s story, like so many others here today, is rooted in the history that this museum holds of immigration and incarceration, resiliency, community, and hope. My earliest memory of JANM is when I was around seven years old, walking through the Historic Building and down to the exhibit with my grandma … I didn’t fully grasp the gravity of what JANM represented then, but I could sense the heaviness and solemn pride coming from her. I didn’t yet understand the history of 120,000 Japanese Americans, including my family, that was preserved and protected at the museum …
“When she visited from Stockton, she would take me through the old barracks and say, ‘Can you imagine all of us living in one place together with no privacy?’ We turned the corner and saw the mountain of luggage. She would tell me that she still had her suitcase that she had to pack everything into when they went to camp.”
Watanabe now keeps that suitcase in her living room. “It’s more than a keepsake. It’s a living reminder of what’s at stake when fear and ignorance threaten our country’s democracy.”
The museum’s collection of home movies includes black-and-white footage shot by Watanabe’s grandfather of family life in pre-war Long Beach as well as in camp.
More recently, when the Ireichō, a book listing all of the incarcerees, was at JANM, “I had the honor of stamping the names of my family members into the book with my then 102-year-old grandfather, his younger brother, and my great aunt standing beside me … representing nearly 300 years of strength and resiliency and history. I watched them stamp their own names and the names of their parents. That moment will stay with me forever.”
Speaking as the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of incarcerees, Watanabe said, “We’re not just retelling the past. We’re allowing future generations to reflect on the choices this country has made and the choices we must make today to build a better future … Just as the generations before us passed down the strength and resiliency for us to be here today, together we can make sure that the museum continues to be a place where history is never forgotten, the present is challenged and not ignored, and our future is something we shape with care, clarity, and courage.”
Burroughs added, “I’m emotional standing here with all of you because I think of all the stories and the memories and histories that each of you holds, and it’s an extraordinary honor and a privilege for us to be the house that can hold those stories for you …
“We will always stand tall to defend the rights enshrined in the Constitution because they’re not privileges that can be bestowed or withdrawn … We will always stand for that.”