SCHEDULE—NEH Landmarks Little Tokyo Workshop (2025)
Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations
An NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture workshop for teachers
Dates:
- Session 1: June 23–27, 2025
- Session 2: July 14–18, 2025
Location: Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA)
Little Tokyo: How History Shapes a Community Across Generations will examine history through the neighborhood of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, California. This week-long workshop will be offered twice: June 23–27, 2025 and July 14–18, 2025. During the course of the workshop, participants will be joined by scholars, educators, curators, and community historians to learn about this unique place and how it has evolved through history.
Schedule
DAY 1—MONDAY: WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION, FOUNDATIONS, PRE-WAR
- Introduction and overview of the workshop
- Facing History and Ourselves, an organization that helps students connect choices made in the past to those they will confront in their own lives, will lead a session on fostering civil discourse in the teaching of dehumanizing history, language, imagery, and actions
- Japanese American immigration and pre-war discrimination and how this influenced the establishment of Little Tokyo
DAY 2—TUESDAY: LITTLE TOKYO, INCARCERATION
- Walking tour of the Little Tokyo neighborhood
- The “How” of Incarceration
- Little Tokyo through objects
- Discussion about returning to sites of incarceration and pilgrimages
DAY 3—WEDNESDAY: MANZANAR
Day trip to Manzanar National Historic Site
DAY 4—THURSDAY: BRONZEVILLE, POSTWAR RESETTLEMENT AND ACTIVISM
- First-person testimony of forced removal and life in camp
- Bronzeville, a brief period during World War II when Little Tokyo was largely inhabited by African Americans from the deep south who came to Southern California for job opportunities but were denied housing in many other areas of the region due to restrictive covenants.
- Post-war resettlement
- First-person testimony of post-war community building and activism with a focus on the 1960s and 1970s
- Allyship and solidarity
DAY 5—FRIDAY: REDRESS AND REPARATIONS, PRESENT-DAY
- Civil Liberties Act of 1988
- Present-day community identity
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