Japanese American National Museum Store Online
The award-winning Museum Store of the Japanese American National Museum features distinctive Asian American merchandise for all occasions and generations. Their unique product line represents the essence of the Japanese American experience, while also promoting an appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity. All proceeds from the Museum Store support Museum programs and exhibitions.
The articles in this series were originally written for the Japanese American National Museum’s online store [janmstore.com] to give a deeper understanding of the authors, artists, and traditions featured in the store.
Stories from this series
After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics - Dr. Greg Robinson
Feb. 13, 2013 • Esther Newman
The wartime roundup and removal from the West Coast of 120,000 American citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry has generated an enormous literature, including important contributions from Dr. Greg Robinson. But the postwar period of resettlement and renewal of Japanese American communities, largely unstudied, is also compelling and deserving of attention. Robinson, Professor of History at l’Université du Québec À Montréal, has just published the first in-depth look at this period in After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American …
Blossoms and Thorns: A Community Uprooted: New documentary portrays a vanishing industry
Jan. 28, 2013 • Fiona Potter
Richmond, California, in the year 1942 calls to mind the bustle of naval shipyards and a whirlwind of housing construction. A semi-rural town before World War II, the city was forever changed by the war and the thousands of defense workers who migrated there to work in various wartime industries. Another story, that of Richmond’s Japanese American residents and their cut-flower nursery businesses, is less well-known. An early twentieth-century immigrant success story, many of these families lost their homes, farms, …
Uncovering Hidden History: Author Greg Robinson Explores Japanese American Journalism in Pacific Citizens
Nov. 16, 2012 • Darryl Mori
“I was stunned when I started, and to some extent still am, at how rarely this precious source seemed to be used or cited by historians of Japanese Americans, notably those of the war years,” says scholar-author Greg Robinson. Robinson is talking about the Pacific Citizen newspaper, which for more than 80 years has chronicled the Japanese American and broader Asian American communities. The paper is published by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), the nation’s oldest and largest Asian …
When Heroes Weren’t Welcomed Home: Author Linda Tamura on Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence
Oct. 31, 2012 • Darryl Mori
“I can still recall the pit in my stomach as I read full-page ads urging Japanese American residents not to return to their community from the camps where they had been exiled,” scholar and author Linda Tamura says. Tamura had been researching her grandmother’s story, which led to Tamura’s previous book, The Hood River Issei: An Oral History of Japanese Settlers in Oregon’s Hood River Valley. “I recall sitting in the basement of the Hood River County Library surveying wartime …
The Girl with Hair like the Sun: An interview with author, Claire Mix
Oct. 10, 2012 • Mai Tanaka
Claire Mix will never forget the day she first learned of the harsh realities that Japanese Americans faced during World War II and the role that her mother played in that dark period of United States’ history. Claire was exposed to this part of history by two people she held in the highest regard—her mother, Ruth Mix and actor, George Takei, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on the “Star Trek” series. At thirteen-years old, Claire—a science fiction …
Kapoho: Memoir of a Modern Pompeii - Frances H. Kakugawa
Sept. 3, 2012 • Leslie Yamaguchi
Mount Vesuvius, Krakatoa, Mount St. Helens—these are the names that come to mind when most of us think of volcanoes. In her most recent book, Kapoho, Memoir of a Modern Pompeii, Frances Kakugawa makes readers outside of Hawaii aware of another volcano—Kilauea—and shares her recollections of Kapoho, Hawaii, the place of her birth and the town ultimately destroyed by Kilauea. Through her writing, Ms. Kakugawa succeeds in keeping alive the most important thing that could be salvaged from the destructive …
