Last month the Japanese American National Museum asked me to deliver a keynote speech on what is necessary to combat authoritarianism and preserve democracy. You can listen to it and the Q&A that followed here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

Remember their sacrifice for our country. Daniel Betsui Jenhatsu Chinen Robert Murata Grover Nagaji Akio Nishikawa Hiroichi Tomita Howard Urabe May they rest in peace and their sacrifice never forgotten. cc: @jamuseum.bsky.social abc7chicago.com/story/japane...

The National Park Service (NPS) has removed an exhibit called “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” at the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The decision comes after president Trump to remove “corrosive ideology” from cultural heritage venues. buff.ly/ni1GGsk

Here’s the video. It’s the American way to gang up on a man and shoot him? Where’s the threat? Sorry, it is in fact the American way.

In solidarity with museums taking a stand ❤️

The attempts at the wholesale erasure of history will not help us achieve a more just America. We must ensure that history is told fully and truthfully, and carry the lessons of history forward. 6abc.com/post/philade...

What is happening today harkens back to the registration of the Issei, which was a precursor to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. They also harken back to the scapegoating of the Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans leading up to WWII. www.al.com/news/2026/01...

Scot Nakagawa will be a panelist at our symposium, Echoes of History: Inspiring Civic Action and Building Democracy, this Friday! Read his piece below and get tickets to the symposium: www.janm.org/events/2026-...

Do we need to say it louder? Here. Louder. " Federal courts in Alabama are using a law last applied during the U.S. internment [incarceration] of people of Japanese descent during World War II to charge immigrants who don’t register themselves..." www.al.com/news/2026/01...

Echoes of History will explore how culture, organizing, and collective memory push back against authoritarianism. If this post found you, consider this an invitation to use our discount code CCFECHOES for $50 off (in-person) or $5 off (virtual). Tickets: janm.org/democracy

I have been invited to give the keynote speech on combatting authoritarianism at the Japanese-American National Museum's Echoes of History symposium on January 23rd in Los Angeles. You can buy tickets in person or to watch via the Livestream! www.janm.org/democracy/ev...

ICE Kidnapping occurred on January 14, 2026, at at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo.

Afternoon panelists at our upcoming symposium! Tyler Green, historian, author, and host of The Modern Art Notes Podcast Rafael Gonzalez, President and CEO, Grand Performances Renee Tajima-Pena, Professor, UCLA @rtajimapena.bsky.social Hamza Walker, Director of The Brick and co-curator of Monuments

How Does a City Respond? with panelists: Gustavo Arellano, Columnist @latimes.com Angelica Salas, Executive Director @chirla-org.bsky.social Miguel Santana, President and CEO, California Community Foundation Memo Torres, Director of Engagement, L.A. Taco @eltragon.bsky.social @lataco.bsky.social

Hear from Damon Brown (Special Assistant Attorney General, State of California) about Antiauthoritarianism and Building a Legacy for the Future www.janm.org/events/2026-...

Speakers for Panel 1 —Antiauthoritarianism: Building a Legacy for the Future www.janm.org/events/2026-...

Echoes of History: Inspiring Civic Action and Building Democracy Hear from keynote speakers Agnès Callamard of Amnesty International, Robert Evans of the Behind the Bastards and It Could Happen Here podcasts and Glenn Kaino, an acclaimed contemporary artist. Tickets: www.janm.org/democracy/ev...

Join the Democracy Center at JANM and meet the thinkers, artists, organizers, and civic leaders confronting authoritarianism today. www.janm.org/events/2026-...

This is our community’s legacy. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/u...

JANM is honored to announce that it has received a second transformative gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The gift of $20 million is the largest single gift in JANM’s history. Our statement: www.janm.org/press/releas...

We cannot allow ourselves to become accustomed to the disdainful actions of this Administration to erase the hard work that immigrants have done to pledge allegiance to the US and call this country home. www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

We stand in solidarity with our friends at the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. Together, we make clear that our past will not be erased and that its lessons will continue to guide us towards a more just future. @heartmountain.bsky.social rafu.com/2025/12/vand...

What would a JANM exhibit or website look like without DEI? It would be blank. #ScrubNothing capitalandmain.com/this-l-a-mus...

JANM Congratulates @annburroughs.bsky.social on Receiving the Bar Association of the District of Columbia’s Pioneer Award! rafu.com/2025/10/janm...

"For Japanese Americans who lived through World War II, the raids feels like a repeat of history. Use of force. Loss of due process. Targeting of ethnic communities." @laist.com laist.com/news/los-ang...

JANM is deeply saddened by the passing of Dr. Arthur A. Hansen, a key figure in capturing the oral histories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II and a beloved member of the JANM family. www.janm.org/press/releas...

“Am I Next?” is a public art campaign featuring images to confront attacks on civil liberties and the undermining of democratic norms that weaken civic life while raising the urgent question: If people are arrested without regard to constitutional rights, who is safe?

“Housing is harder and harder to build, but projects like Umeya show what’s possible when community and legacy come together.” laist.com/news/housing...

Amid the growing instability in global security, the resilience of US-Japan relations has never been more vital to the Indo-Pacific region. Join us for a free program that reexamines the future of this bilateral relationship, particularly in trade and security. www.janm.org/events/2025-...

This is about our legacy. Stand up for your principles, your community and the people who came before us. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/a...

Minidoka National Historic Site is undergoing a multiyear renovation that will preserve the Block 22 Barracks, the mess hall and root cellar buildings. "This renovation will help visitors feel the weight of America’s heavy history." www.boisestatepublicradio.org/news/2025-09...

"It means that another story will not be lost in time, another story that may help people not repeat the same mistakes." #ShikataGaNai www.npr.org/2025/09/24/n...

Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of JANM and a Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation board member, will receive the Hon. Annice M. Wagner Pioneer Award from the Bar Association of the District of Columbia during its annual banquet Sat, Dec. 6 in Washington, D.C. www.powelltribune.com/stories/hear...

#ScrubNothing news.artnet.com/art-world/mu...

This decision will subject countless people in the Los Angeles area to unconstitutional and needless assaults and arrests based on their race, language, and work. Individuals, families, and communities will be criminalized. www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...

The Modern Art Notes Podcast will start its fall season with a program that spotlights the leading museum-sector institutional response to encroaching fascism and our perilous national condition. You will not want to miss it. Tell a friend, subscribe now. (It's free!) manpodcast.com/subscribe/

Nancy Ukai dug into the stories behind the wood carvings & nameplates that are now a part of the Allen Hendershott Eaton Collection & featured in @jamuseum.bsky.social’s traveling exhibition, "Contested Histories: Preserving and Sharing a Community Collection."

When governments police museums, they are not simply policing exhibitions. They are policing imagination itself. Censorship has taken hold at the Smithsonian. I refused to play along.” —Amy Sherald

“The Snow Country Prison Memorial is our story as well as the Native American story.” The monument recognizes the common experience shared by Japanese Americans and Indigenous communities who faced forced removal and oppression by the United States. northdakotamonitor.com/2025/08/27/n...

These latest attempts to sanitize and reshape history to fit a narrow ideological narrative amount to nothing less than the erasure of history. We cannot reverse America’s journey toward a more just and equitable future. www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Congratulations to the Terminal Islanders Association and Los Angeles Conservancy on the Historic-Cultural Monument designation of Terminal Island’s Furusato Tuna Street Buildings by the LA City Council! www.laconservancy.org/learn/histor...

Join us for a Day of Action to defend the truth of WWIl Japanese American incarceration history. Hear from incarceration survivors, community activists, and allies to honor our history and demand that this injustice never happens again. #ProtectEveryPark Saturday, August 23, 10am @ JANM Plaza

The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans. It is inconceivable that the US is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago. www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...

Museums must be places of truth, not propaganda—spaces where the next generation can confront the complexity of our nation’s injustices, mistakes, and darkest chapters; where empathy, social responsibility, and the courage to defend democracy are nurtured. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/a...

“We are outraged and deeply distressed that armed federal agents came onto our campus — making arrests on the very ground where, in 1942, Japanese American families were forced to board buses bound for concentration camps.” — Ann Burroughs, CEO of the Japanese American National Museum

Earlier today, U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted a raid in Little Tokyo near a press event held by @cagovernornewsom.bsky.social. Reporting by @shoton35mm.bsky.social @eltragon.bsky.social @marinamasako.bsky.social

We are outraged and deeply distressed that armed federal agents came onto our campus—making arrests on the very ground where, in 1942, Japanese American families were forced to board buses bound for concentration camps. It was a deliberate act of provocation and intimidation.

I saw two versions of America in LA’s Little Tokyo yesterday. In the Democracy Center at the Japanese Am. Nat’l Museum, I watched CA leaders announce plans to fight authoritarianism. Outside were heavily armed ICE agents—a Trump regime stunt designed to terrorize immigrant Angelenos & stifle dissent

On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m., the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of #Hiroshima, the first time in human history that any country used the unparalleled power and devastation of atomic bombs. The US remains the only country to use nuclear weapons during a time of war.