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Featured Collections

TANAKA STUDIO COLLECTION (2007.61) This collection includes over 1,000 photographic negatives from Issei photographer Chikashi Tanaka (1888–1977). These photographs, taken for hundreds of clients, document the vibrant and deeply-rooted Japanese American community in Southern California during the prewar era. Japanese American National Museum, Gift in memory of Chikashi & Asa Tanaka and Yasuo “Clifford” & Yur...

Barbara Kawakami Collection

(92.12, 94.275, 97.263, 99.235, 2004.1, 2006.166, 2008.95) This online collection of textiles and other artifacts from late 19th century through the 20th century was gathered by author and scholar Barbara Kawakami primarily in Hawaii. It is the most significant collection of Issei (first generation Japanese) immigration and plantation clothing in the world. A sample of the collection is currently available online wit...

National Conferences

JANM’s national conferences have strived to present transformative programming, presentations, and activities to multigenerational audiences. Each conference delved into historic and contemporary Japanese American experiences—within the context of democracy and social justice—by drawing upon scholarly analysis, community perspectives, and the power of the conference host site. Conversations begun at the conferences h...

Clara Breed Collection

(93.75.31) The online collection of Clara Breed, or "Miss Breed" as she was known by her young library patrons, includes over 300 letters and cards received by Breed from Japanese American children and young adults during their World War II incarceration. Miss Breed was the children's librarian at San Diego Public Library from 1929 to 1945. When her young Japanese American patrons were forced into concentration ca...

Hideo Date Collection

(99.111) The online collection of New York City-based artist Hideo Date (1907-2004) dates from the 1930s to 2004 and includes 178 drawings, prints and paintings. Born in Osaka, Japan, Date immigrated to California in 1923. After graduating from high school he enrolled at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, but left after a year to pursue the study of traditional brush painting in Japan. Date returned to Los An...

Stanley Hayami Diary

(95.226) Stanley Hayami (1925-1945) was a student from Los Angeles who attended high school at the Heart Mountain Concentration Camp in Wyoming. Hayami left Heart Mountain in June 1944 to join the U.S. Army and was killed in combat in Northern Italy on April 23, 1945, while trying to help a fellow soldier. He was nineteen years old. This diary, which Hayami kept from 1941 to 1944, records a spectrum of youthful dream...

Moving Images Collection

The Japanese American National Museum has published a trove of rare home-movie footage from the Museum’s historic collections on its Discover Nikkei website. This online collection includes rare home-movie footage of over 330 film clips about the daily lives of Japanese Americans from the 1920s through the 1960s including poignant footage from America’s World War II concentration camps. Drawn from the Nationa...

Hisako Hibi Collection

(96.601, 98.138, 99.63) Includes sixty-three oil paintings painted by artist Hisako Hibi at Tanforan Assembly Center in California and Topaz concentration camp in Utah from 1942 to 1945. Subjects include various daily activities, still lifes, and landscapes. Born Hisako Shimizu in Fukui, Japan in 1907, Hibi came to the United States in 1920 with her parents. In 1925, when the rest of her family returned to Japan, ...

George Hoshida Collection

(96.117)(97.106) The online collection of George Hoshida (1907–1985) includes 260 drawings and watercolors drawn from his visual diary covering his incarceration for the duration of World War II in the Kilauea Military Camp and Sand Island in Hawai‘i, in Justice Department internment camps at Lordsburg and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in WRA camps in Jerome, Arkansas and Gila River, Arizona. George Hoshida was born i...

Estelle Ishigo Collection

(94.195) The online collection of Estelle Peck Ishigo (1899-1990) covers life in the Pomona detention center in California and in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming camp during World War II. Includes 120 drawings, sketches, and watercolors. EXPLORE THE COLLECTION