President Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” signed last month, aims to “revitalize key cultural institutions.” The administration wants museums to end DEI programs and eliminate what it considers divisive ideology. And so, the Smithsonian closed its DEI office in January.
However, one institution refusing to do the same is LA’s Japanese American National Museum (JANM), which formally opened the day the Rodney King verdict was announced — April 29, 1992.
Boyle Heights native Bill Fujioka, chair of the Board of Trustees at JANM, says the museum just lost $1.7 million that the federal government previously approved, and it generally receives $5-7 million.
Those funds go to multiple programs, he explains. “We bring in up to 20,000 Title I kids from the Los Angeles area to learn about our story. … We bring teachers in from across the nation, who are able to sit with our staff, sit with docents — and a large number of the docents are survivors from the camps — and learn about the Japanese American experience, particularly what happened in 1942. And they, in turn, would take that information and share it with their students. We feel it's important — the stories of our community are shared. It was with the hope that it wouldn't be repeated. But unfortunately, that hope is gone because it is happening again right now.”
In 1942, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Fujioka explains, the U.S. government invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 which initially deported Japanese immigrants back to their native country, then led to Executive Order 9066, resulting in the incarceration of 125,000 Japanese people. Two-thirds of the 125,000 were U.S. citizens. “Everything was done without any trial, without any due process. One of the greatest legal travesties in the history of our country.”
What will happen if JANM doesn’t get funding for this program? Fujioka says the museum’s board, president, CEO, and all staff will “not put money before principle.”
“It's extremely important to honor the legacy or the individuals that came before us. In my culture, we call them the first generation — Issei. And second generations — Nisei, Hama, Sansei. … The Issei and Sansei … lost everything and [were] placed in camps and desolate areas with, again, a gross violation of due process and the civil rights. There's such a strong parallel right now. If we were not to stand up, if we were to stay silent, we would dishonor the individuals who came before us, who, through their sacrifice, through what they had to endure, set the foundation for everything I've achieved in my life.”
He points out that many nonprofits and museums are removing references to DEI and social justice from their websites, but “JANM will scrub nothing, and will stand up for social justice, but we're also standing tall for diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Now, JANM will raise money and get the word out to all communities, Fujioka says.
“We will do it because we have the current administration scrubbing the books of the heroics of the 442 and 100 — the Japanese American army battalions during World War II. … There was a death camps [sic] in Germany … a Japanese American battalion liberated that death camp, that's not in the history books. And when they did so, the military leaders came in and said, ‘We can't have these Japanese liberate this death camp because their families are behind barbed wires right now.’ And so they forced the Japanese battalion out and brought in a white battalion, and they staged the liberation,” he explains.
When Fujioka looks at the Supreme Court’s Korematsu v. United States decision, which allowed the internment of Japanese Americans, and today’s SCOTUS, what goes through his mind?
He says that as someone who’s worked 44 years in government, he’s scared.
He adds, “Information has come out that a significant number of individuals taken to that prison in El Salvador are not criminals, and had the right to stay in this country. There's an absolute parallel there.”
This is the time to build coalitions, Fujioka says. “We're hoping that as people see us stand up, they'll knock on our door and say, ‘We'll stand with you.’ I think if we all join hands and stand up, we can make a huge difference and hopefully reverse some of the decisions that are being made.”