Celebrate Our Shared Future in Los Angeles and enjoy a day of free admission and cultural activities for all ages! Join JANM for a live reading and signing with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, an interactive origami activity, and a musical performance by East LA Taiko. Explore the new family friendly, interactive exhibition, The Bias Inside Us organized by the Smithsonian, and experience Aki’s Market, a virtual reality recreation of a corner store that served a multicultural community in East LA from 1957-1970, created by Los Angeles artist Glenn Akira Kaino.
Be sure to visit booths from our special guests, the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and the Museum of Latin American Art.
This event is in conjunction with the Smithonian’s Our Shared Future initiative. Visit our partners, the Chinese American Museum (CAM) and LA Plaza de Culturas y Artes (LA Plaza) for more activities on December 17.
Take Metro’s A line between the new Little Tokyo/Arts District Station and Union Station. JANM is just one stop away from CAM and LA Plaza.
Schedule
12:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Daruma Origami
Fold a paper daruma, a lucky Japanese doll, and use it to set a goal for our shared future.
1:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Performance by East LA Taiko & J-Town Taiko Club
East LA Taiko is a fiery eclectic blend of world rhythm that travels the globe and takes you right into the heart of Los Angeles.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Reading of Love in the Library and conversation with Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Set in a concentration camp where the United States cruelly detained Japanese Americans during World War II and based on true events, this moving love story finds hope in heartbreak. Join the author for a reading and talk for all ages!
About Love in the Library
To fall in love is already a gift. But to fall in love in a place like Minidoka, a place built to make people feel like they weren’t human—that was miraculous. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tama is sent to live in a War Relocation Center in the desert. All Japanese Americans from the West Coast—elderly people, children, babies—now live in prison camps like Minidoka. To be who she is has become a crime, it seems, and Tama doesn’t know when or if she will ever leave. Trying not to think of the life she once had, she works in the camp’s tiny library, taking solace in pages bursting with color and light, love and fairness. And she isn’t the only one. George waits each morning by the door, his arms piled with books checked out the day before. As their friendship grows, Tama wonders: Can anyone possibly read so much? Is she the reason George comes to the library every day?
Beautifully illustrated and complete with an afterword, back matter, and a photo of the real Tama and George—the author’s grandparents—Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s elegant love story for readers of all ages sheds light on a shameful chapter of American history.
Bios
Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Maggie Tokuda-Hall has an MFA in creative writing from USF. She is the author of the 2017 Parent’s Choice Gold Medal winning picture book, Also an Octopus, illustrated by Benji Davies. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea is her debut young adult novel, which was an NPR, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Book Page Best Book of 2020. Its sequel, The Siren, The Song and The Spy comes out September 2023. Her graphic novel, Squad, is an Ignyte and Locus Award nominated comic book, and her newest picture book, Love in the Library, has been named a Best Picture Book of 2022 by Book Page, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Publisher’s Weekly. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, children, and objectively perfect dog.
Photo by Red Scott
East LA Taiko
East LA Taiko is a collaboration between the “demon drummer from East LA,” Maceo Hernandez, Beastie Boys drummer, Alfredo Ortiz, and award winning musician, Lysa Flores. East LA Taiko (ELAT) is a Latino Taiko group with a twist, that marries Afro-Cuba rhythms with driving taiko beats.
Maceo Hernandez has been performing Taiko for over 20 years. He began as a teenager with Montebello Sozenji Taiko. He was soon invited to join JapansWorld renowned “Ondekoza”. He lived and trained in Japan, performing in Asia, Europe, North America, and at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Presented as part of
Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past in Los Angeles
Part of the Smithsonian’s national initiative, Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past
