Our story is an American story. Our founders promised that the Museum would stand as a beacon of civil rights to ensure that what happened to Japanese Americans in 1942 would never happen to any other group. We are therefore embarking on the largest campaign in our history to secure our future and transform our physical and digital presence, our exhibitions, and our programming.

Last year JANM announced Our Promise, an ambitious campaign and plan for the future that includes a renovation of the Museum’s galleries, a new core exhibition, and transformational investments in its programming.

Thanks to our community’s overwhelming support and generosity from donors like you—large and small, public and private, near and far—the Museum exceeded its original goal of $65 million and will increase it to $85 million while extending the campaign until late 2026.

Your generous response reflects the value our community places on JANM and its standing as a beacon of civil rights and a keeper and storyteller of the Japanese American experience. Reinvigorating our campus, programs, and reach will bring these American stories into the future, for and with people from all backgrounds and walks of life.

In the Future We Call Now

In its most significant change since 1999, JANM is creating its new core exhibition, In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Dreams of Democracy (2026). The exhibition will: 

• Re-imagine how it tells the stories of Japanese Americans by drawing on today’s technological advances and national discussion around race and democracy
• Include familiar elements from the current core exhibition to carry the World War II incarceration stories forward
• Highlight new stories that explore the choices our community made in face of adversity as they fought towards an ever-shifting vision of the future.

Improvements to the Museum’s HVAC systems will help preserve over 150,000 objects and collections with which JANM has been entrusted (and the powerful American stories they tell) to make sure they are available and accessible to future generations.
 

We are incredibly grateful to the volunteers, Members, and donors who have made JANM the resource and destination it is since its founding, and for the investments they have made in our future. 

The mission of the Japanese American National Museum is to promote understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience.