JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO INTERIOR SECRETARY RYAN ZINKE’S COMMENT TO REP. COLLEEN HANABUSA

Los Angeles, CA—The Japanese American National Museum is profoundly disappointed by the insulting treatment of Hawaii Representative Colleen Hanabusa by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. By flippantly responding in Japanese to her impassioned plea for the continued funding of the Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) grant program, Secretary Zinke demonstrated a shocking level of insensitivity and cultural ignorance. Rep. Hanabusa is a fourth generation American. To address her with a phrase he clearly did not know the meaning of, in a language that he is clearly not familiar with, during a hearing on a serious matter related to one of this nation’s darkest chapter of history is inexcusable.

The ignorance that Secretary Zinke displayed is precisely why the JACS grant program is so important. Through JACS grants, the historic sites where Japanese American were imprisoned during World War II simply for “looking like the enemy” are protected and a wide range of institutions and organizations, including JANM, are able to teach important lessons about the unlawful incarceration of 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry. Those lessons are no less important today; if anything, our world today demands that history be remembered so that what happened to Japanese Americans in the 1940s is never allowed to happen again.

Secretary Zinke’s inappropriate comment demonstrates and perpetuates the racist perception that Japanese Americans and other ethnic minorities are always “foreigners,” regardless of having been in the United States for several generations. This type of racism is what led to the violation of Constitutional rights during World War II, when our country’s leaders wrongly thought of American-born individuals of Japanese ancestry as “the enemy.”

We are somewhat heartened by Secretary Zinke’s acknowledgment that the JACS grant program is indeed important. We hope his other future remarks show the proper respect to all of our nation’s peoples and their elected representatives.

About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, the Japanese American National Museum promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories and strives to provide a voice for Japanese Americans as well as a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public, JANM has presented over 70 exhibitions onsite and traveled 17 of its exhibitions to locations around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America.

JANM is located at 100 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles. Museum hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from noon to 8 p.m. General admission is $12 adults, $6 students and seniors, free for members and children under age five. Admission is free to everyone on Thursdays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and every third Thursday of the month from noon to 8 p.m. General admission prices and free admission times may not apply to specially ticketed exhibitions. Closed Monday, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. For more information visit janm.org or call 213.625.0414.