Japanese American National Museum
Museum at First Street
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| Established | 1992 |
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| Location | Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California |
| Type | History and culture of Japanese Americans |
| Public transit access |
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| Website | www.janm.org |
The Japanese American National Museum (全米日系人博物館 Zenbei Nikkeijin Hakubutsukan?) is a museum dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. It is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown Los Angeles, California. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affiliations program.
The museum contains over 130 years of Japanese American history, dating back to the first Issei generation. It houses a moving image archive, which contains over 100,000 feet (30,000 m) of 16 mm and 8 mm home movies of Japanese Americans from the 1920s to the 1950s. It also contains artifacts, textiles, art, photographs, and oral histories of Japanese Americans. The Japanese American National Museum of Los Angeles and the Academy Film Archive collaborate to care for and provide access to home movies that document the Japanese American experience. Established in 1992, the JANM Collection at the Academy Film Archive currently contains over 250 home movies and continues to grow.
The idea for the museum was originally thought up by Bruce Kaji with help from other notable Japanese American people at the time. When it first opened in 1992, the museum was housed in the 1925 historic Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple building and Irene Hirano served as its first executive director. Then in January 1999, the National Museum opened its current 85,000-square-foot (7,900 m2) Pavilion to the public. The temple building, used in 1942 to process Japanese Americans for wartime confinement, is now used for offices and storage.
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