In 2026, both institutions to highlight history, impacts of JA food culture.

By GWEN MURANAKA
RAFU SENIOR EDITOR

A collaboration that will explore the tastes, sights and memories that comprise the food history of the Japanese American community, spanning two core institutions of Little Tokyo, came about, naturally, over a meal.

On July 11, the National Park Service awarded Japanese American Confinement Site grants to the Japanese American National Museum and the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center. JANM received $652,000 for its new core exhibition project, and JACCC received nearly $250,000 in support of “Ask the Mountain for the Menu: A Multisensory Exploration of the Foodways of the War Relocation Authority Camps.”

JACCC’s program is part of a partnership with JANM, with their food programming to relate to the forthcoming exhibition “Eating Together: Food in Japanese America.” Both projects are scheduled for 2026.

From California rolls, Umeya rice cakes and Fugetsu-do manju to Koda Farms rice and countless others, Japanese American practices of cooking, growing and harvesting food have been central to the culture. JACCC and JANM will explore the origins of Japanese American food and its current and future impacts on American life.

“It is such a thrill to be doing this together. It’s big news and wonderful for the entire community,” said Patricia Wyatt, JACCC president and CEO.

In an interview with **The Rafu,** Wyatt and Ann Burroughs, JANM president and CEO, said the two leaders had wanted their organizations to collaborate for a long time and the idea for creating programing around food came about over a lunch of sushi a few years ago at Otoro in Little Tokyo.

“Foodways” will interpret the food that was grown and consumed in the WRA camps in order to deepen the nation’s collective understanding of the Japanese American experience. JACCC will engage the public by sharing the wartime creativity and determination of incarcerees in improving camp conditions and meals.

Their excitement was clearly evident as both Burroughs and Wyatt explained the ways JACCC and JANM will tell the story of food culture and its central place in Japanese American life. In 2022 JANM received a grant of $175,903 for the development of “Eating Together.”

JANM and JACCC worked together strategically to submit grant proposals to JACS that would enhance and complement their efforts. JANM’s JACS grant will go towards redesign of their core exhibition, In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Dreams of Democracy,” which will be the country’s largest and most comprehensive exhibition devoted to sharing the experiences of Japanese American communities during World War II.

“We knew we have this big piece we had to fund, so we thought we’ll go for the JACS grant to support our exhibition and it made so much sense for JACCC to go for the JACS grant that would go for the public programming and all the incredible value. It was a perfect match made in heaven and our strategy paid off,” Burroughs said.

At JACCC, among the programs will be a crop of rice grown on the JACCC Plaza, accompanied by a year-long series of programs to explore the ingenuity of the incarcerees who succeeded in farming desolate, infertile environments during the war to grow rice.

“We’ll plant the rice, it will grow, we’ll harvest it and explore some of the stories of the food, the recipes. We’ll share those,” Wyatt said.

“How can we not only do the kind of exhibition that tells this history and important story but also bring it to life so that people can actually taste the food, so they can experience it? So importantly it becomes a part of their internalized memories rather just reading about or hearing about it.

“It tells a bigger story. The experience made them become creative about how to figure out how do we try to do our best under these circumstances to recreate the foods that bring us comfort? And they did the best they could. Just knowing about their ingenuity and the tools they created is one layer of the story.”

At JANM, curator Emily Anderson has been doing research, drawing on the museum’s extensive collection and asking the community for its recipes, favorite Oshogatsu treats and farming stories for “Eating Together.” The museum’s Pavilion will be closing for the renovation Dec. 30, and “Eating Together” will debut when the Pavilion reopens in late 2026.

Burroughs added that the goal is “to show that incredible continuum of the history and the ever-deepening impact on Japanese American culture and how it’s becoming ubiquitous throughout American cuisine. It’s also looking at the contemporary food experience. It’s everything from the exhibition that we’re planning as well as the public programing and cultural aspect.”

With the grants in hand, now comes the difficult work of planning and execution. The two executives spoke with passion of ideas such as cookbooks, chef and cooking experiences and a traveling exhibition that will tell the story to other communities beyond Little Tokyo.

The JACCC-JANM partnership comes at a fortuitous time for the historic neighborhood as it celebrates its 140th year and was named among America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a sign of Little Tokyo’s perseverance and also its fragility.

“It feels so exciting too. It’s coming on this huge infusion of funding into Little Tokyo and this will really be a signature collaboration for JANM and JACCC and also for Little Tokyo,” Burroughs said. “It’s such a strong signal and such a strong foundation for continued collaboration along those obvious points. We’re incredibly excited about this collaboration and being able to do something that showcases Little Tokyo at its best.”

“It’s great to be able to collaborate as sister organizations and we do hope we can travel at least some aspects of this show. As the largest Japantown left in North America, it’s incumbent on us to tell the story so that it spreads far beyond Little Tokyo and Southern California, because it’s an important story for all,” Wyatt stated.

“It’s important that as a couple of the anchor institutions, our collaboration is a signal to all that we are united as a community and that history and our lived experience is something that we value and support. Coming together in this way is an important signal to all of Little Tokyo that … we will share resources in order to tell the story of our community.”

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