JANM and The Irei Project to Tour Ireichō Across the US Beginning February 2025

LOS ANGELES, CA – In 2025, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) will partner with The Irei Project to travel The Ireichō in conjunction with pilgrimages to all ten former War Relocation Authority (WRA) concentration camps and other Department of Justice (DOJ) and Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) incarceration sites. The Ireichō, a book of names, is the first comprehensive listing of persons of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated in US Army, DOJ, WCCA, and WRA camps. The twenty-month national tour will begin in Washington, DC, on February 18, 2025, and continue to stops in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming through July 2026. The tour will help fulfill the vision of the Museum and The Irei Project to honor and recognize all 125,284 individuals in the Ireichō and provide an opportunity for thousands of people across the US to engage in this intimate act of racial repair.

Visitors from across generations, the nation, and the globe have visited the Museum to stamp the names as a way to honor those incarcerated during World War II. Community participation continues to activate the Ireichō and rectify the historical record by correcting misspelled names or revealing names that may have been omitted from the record. During its installation at JANM from October 2022–December 2024, 81,485 names in the Ireichō have been acknowledged.

“It has been so deeply moving to witness the impact on individuals and families from across the country and the globe who made personal pilgrimages to the Museum to stamp family names and find meaning and healing by interacting with the book. The Ireichō is a powerful monument to the injustice of history and to the power of repair and the collective commitment to ensuring that this history is never repeated. JANM is honored to work with The Irei Project to bring this powerful experience to communities across the nation,” said Ann Burroughs, JANM President and CEO.

“Each individual act of stamping a name in the Ireichō becomes part of this ever-growing monument. By bringing the book to various corners of our nation we come closer to honoring each and every incarceree,” said Duncan Ryuken Williams, founder of The Irei Project and Director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture.

Williams will present a virtual program about the Ireichō and the tour on Wednesday, January 29, at 11 a.m. PST. Free tickets to the livestream will be available to the public at janm.org/events beginning January 13.  

The tour will kick off February 18–21, 2025, in Washington DC, where Executive Order 9066 that led to the mass incarceration of the Japanese American community on the Pacific Coast was issued, presented in conjunction with the National Archives and Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for Day of Remembrance. The Book of Names will continue its tour to various former confinement sites, starting with Manzanar, CA, at the time of its annual pilgrimage on April 26, 2025. The book will travel in conjunction with the pilgrimages at Amache, CO (May 13–17, 2025); Jerome and Rohwer, AR (May 21–22, 2025); Minidoka, ID (July 11–13, 2025): Heart Mountain, WY (July 24–26, 2025); Crystal City, TX, DOJ internment camp (October 10–12, 2025); Poston, AZ (October 24–25, 2025), the Sacramento, CA, WCCA incarceration site (February 14–19, 2026), and Topaz, UT (May 1–2, 2026), and to Tule Lake (July 4–5, 2026). It will also travel to the Gila River, AZ, area (October 31–November 2, 2025), in conjunction with the Gila River Indian Community and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Arizona Chapter. Details on public participation will be available at janm.org/ireicho.

At the close of the national tour in August 2026, the Ireichō will be formally gifted by the Irei Project to JANM, where it will remain as part of JANM’s permanent collection and a lasting monument to the formidable strength of the Japanese American community.

The tour is also part of JANM on the Go, a series of programs and exhibitions presented across California, the US, and beyond during the renovation of the Museum’s Pavilion in 2025 and 2026.

Ireichō tour schedule

Editors please note: JANM’s Pavilion will close for renovation on January 5, 2025; programs will continue on the JANM campus and at other locations at janm.org/OnTheGo. 

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM 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 center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over one hundred exhibitions onsite while traveling forty exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM’s Pavilion will close for renovation on January 5, 2025; programs will continue on the JANM campus, throughout Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Southern California, and beyond from early January 2025 through late 2026. For more information, visit janm.org/OnTheGo or follow us on social media @jamuseum.

About the Irei Project

The Irei Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the memory of the over 125,000 persons of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in America’s concentration and internment camps during WWII. The Irei Monument is based on the compilation of the names of those incarcerated in the wartime camps. A team of researchers led by project director Duncan Ryuken Williams is responsible for ensuring the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the names. All monuments have been conceived under the guidance of the project's creative director Sunyoung Lee, together with a team of artists and designers.