JASSC has secured a Community Organization table to support this event. On a first-come, first served basis, we have 10 seats available at the JASSC table. Please join us in showing our support for the 25th Anniversary of the Japanese American National Museum.
Seats are $200, and you can reserve your seat with fellow JASSC Supporters.
JANM ANNOUNCES HONOREES AND
THEME FOR 2017 ANNUAL GALA DINNER
“I’m thrilled that the Japanese American National Museum will be honoring three such outstanding individuals at our 2017 Gala Dinner,” said Norman Y. Mineta, Chair of JANM’s Board of Trustees. “Irene and Bruce are inextricably linked to the success the museum enjoys today, having given their hearts and seemingly endless energies to the institution from its very beginnings. Tom is equally committed to Densho and I’m proud the museum is recognizing his efforts to preserve and share the Japanese American experience and encourage equality and civil rights. All three of these honorees offer enormous inspiration as we celebrate the museum’s 25th anniversary and chart the course for the decades to come.”
Bruce T. Kaji, who led the group of local businessmen seeking to create a museum back in the 1980s, will be honored with the Legacy Award, established to recognize individuals and organizations that have made a lasting contribution to the museum’s institutional legacy and helped to distinguish the museum as a unique, vital, and valuable community resource. Kaji was Chairman and President of Merit Savings Bank, which underwrote the start-up costs for the creation of the museum. In addition, he recruited volunteers and persuaded public officials to support the cause of building JANM. His ability to bring people together, including the Japanese American veterans group that had a complementary idea in the early 1980s, was integral to the founding of the institution and set the tone of collaboration that has continued to be a hallmark of the museum.
Irene Hirano Inouye will be presented with JANM’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Hirano Inouye is currently President of the U.S.–Japan Council. She was appointed Executive Director of JANM in 1988, as the museum was preparing to restore the former Buddhist temple, and added the President title and role in the early 1990s. Hirano Inouye also oversaw the construction and opening of the museum’s current Pavilion building in 1999. She relinquished the CEO title in 2008 and left the President role in June 2009.
Tom Ikeda will receive the Founders’ Award, established to recognize an individual or organization that advances the mission and vision of the museum’s founders in a meaningful way on a national or international scale. The founders’ vision includes, among other goals, presenting the Japanese American experience from a first-person perspective and as an integral part of America’s heritage, and encouraging appreciation for cultural diversity. Densho, a Japanese term meaning “to pass on to the next generation,” uses digital technology to preserve and make accessible primary source materials on the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. It presents those materials and related resources for their historic value and as a means of exploring issues of democracy, intolerance, wartime hysteria, civil rights, and the responsibilities of citizenship in a global society.
