Japanese American National Museum Is Standing Up to Trump’s Attacks on History |
Independent journalism at Truthout faces unprecedented authoritarian censorship. If you value progressive media, please make a year-end donation today.
Days after starting his second term, President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders that targeted DEI programs and policies for elimination, decrying them as illegal and immoral. Museums across the country scrambled to react — and in many cases, comply. Within days, Washington’s National Gallery of Art announced it would close its office of belonging and inclusion and remove the words “diversity, equity, access and inclusion” from its list of values on its website. Five days later, the Smithsonian followed suit.
But the Japanese American National Museum, a relatively small institution in downtown Los Angeles, chose a different path. Founded in 1992 at the site of a historic Buddhist temple in L.A.’s Little Tokyo, the museum took a stand against Trump and his anti-DEI edicts while other museums acquiesced. Two weeks after the Smithsonian shuttered its DEI office and stripped its websites of DEI-related language, JANM’s leaders announced that they would not waver from their commitment to DEI or their mission of telling the full truth about the Japanese American experience, World War II incarceration camps and all. We will scrub nothing, JANM announced, in what would become a slogan for the museum’s defiance. That stance came with significant risks: At stake were millions in federal grants from institutions like the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
“You can’t put a price tag on your community’s integrity and your institution’s integrity,” said William T. Fujioka, chair of JANM’s board of trustees and the former chief executive officer of L.A. County.
To date, JANM, which has an operating budget of around $13 million, has lost $660,000 in federal funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, said Sherrill Ingalls, JANM’s director of marketing and communications. In October, the museum was also turned down for a Japanese American Confinement Sites grant from the National Park Service that funds projects about the Japanese American incarceration camps — a story central to the museum’s existence since it was founded.
“We always got money for this grant,” Fujioka said. This year: nothing.
“I don’t think we can draw conclusions,” said Ann Burroughs, JANM’s President and CEO. “I think it’s important that you quote that: We can’t draw conclusions.”
“But one hears things anecdotally,” she added.
“We don’t know for a fact why we didn’t get it,” Fujioka said. “But it’s probably grounded on the very vocal and strong position we’ve taken.”
Sticking to your principles in defiance of a vindictive president and your own financial interests is never easy. But as many prominent museums — institutions whose primary mission is to inform the public about our collective histories — bend to Trump’s will, it’s become a stand few museums other than JANM have been willing to take.
“If you find some, let me know, because I haven’t seen it,” said Lori Fogarty, the director of the Oakland Museum of California. “And I’ve been actively looking to see what other museums might take the stance of bravery that JANM has taken.”
* * *
JANM’s decision to take a stand came at a board of trustees meeting last February. “We started to hear that other nonprofits, particularly other museums, were starting to scrub their websites of any references to DEI because they were afraid they were going to lose funding,” Fujioka said.
“The executive orders were coming fast and furious, and there was this pervasive fear of, ‘What the hell does this mean?’” Burroughs said. The trustees considered what might be lost by opposing the executive orders — both in terms of funding, but also by placing a very visible target on their backs. “We talked about the importance of standing up and being vocal,” Fujioka said.
In the end, the board voted unanimously to push back against Trump’s attacks on DEI, approving a........