On my way back home to Bay from the Ammys, my travel companions and I stopped off in Little Tokyo for a quick pit stop that turned into a greater revelation. I just wanted to load up on some manju at Fugetsu-Do, one of only a handful of true, independent Japanese confectioners left on the West Coast. But down the block from the store I couldn’t help but notice the striking façade of the National Japanese American Museum’s relatively new Pavilion building. Years ago, the last time I had visited the NJAM, I had seen the architectural plans for the Pavilion and they were impressive on paper, but in real time glass and steel, the outstretched arc of its auditorium glittered in the hazy LA sun looks truly magnificient, a gorgeous aesthetic exterior to complement the museum’s rich interior.
The NJAM certainly isn’t the only Asian American-themed museum in the US. Cities like New York, San Francisco and Seattle have other prominent Asian American-related museums — I’ve even seen signs for an Asian American Cultural Center off the Las Vegas Strip. But both in its size, scope and sheer presence, the NJAM is one impressive piece of work - a testament to the laborious fund-raising that went into building the new Pavilion as well as to the tenacity of the JA community to preserve its own legacy in American history.
As you might expect, one of the main exhibits in the Pavilion is on the internment experience, entitled "Common Ground: Heart of a Community.". Before you even get to the main entrance, two towering exhibits catch your attention. The first is the wooden frame of a shack transported directly from Heart Mountain, Montana, one of the main internment camps during WWII. The other is a towering wall of luggage set up as an imposing and somber symbol of the sheer mass of humanity that was forced in haste to uproot their lives.
The other main exhibit is "More Than A Game: Japanese Americans and Sport", covering everything from the thriving pre-war Nisei baseball leagues in California to the Olympic victory of skater Kristi Yamaguchi to highlighting the successes of forgotten sports stars like Wat Misaka., a basketball player with the New York Knicks in the late ‘40s.
As a child, I loved visiting museums for their larger-than-life exhibits and journeys into the unknown. My fond memories include visits to the magical New England Aquarium in Boston, San Diego’s anthropological Museum of Man, and Los Angeles’ massive Museum of Natural History. But for me, museums were always about discovering something new or learning about some other culture rather than anything that affirmed my own knowledge or heritage. Museums themselves are curious institutions — burdened by the task of representing a society’s "official" histories, cultures, values, etc. So the relative absence of Asian American stories from major American museums contributes to our symbolic erasure from society itself.
Given that, visiting the NJAM felt incredibly validating and meaningful even though I’m not Japanese American. Yet even though my own relatives and forebears didn’t get interned or play in the Nisei baseball leagues, I still feel a sense of connection — the shared sense of heritage that has provided the tenuous glue behind the elusive Asian American identity. Moreover, the fact that any institution would be devoted to the history, struggle and celebration of any Asian American group helps write us back into the national narrative, one story at a time. Besides, it was clear that the NJAM wasn’t there just for JAs. In just the hour I spent browsing, the other patrons included every color in LA’s complex, cosmopolitan palette, a mix of brown, black, white and yellow bodies moving through its tall halls.
The challenge will be for other Asian American communities to replicate the same kind of coordinated resource development to establish similar museums. As tempting as the idea for a National Asian American Museum might be, it’d be a political and logistical nightmare to put together and besides, Asian America seems hardly formed enough to claim any kind of official history or culture. Some might seem this as a retreat to Balkanized ethnic identities but if the NJAM teaches us anything, it’s that one history can sometimes represent for many as every thread ultimately contributes to the weaving of a larger tapestry.
Further proof that Asian America is more concept than reality: the amusingly numerous gaffes that Ammys’ presenters made in trying to pronounce Asian names and words across ethnic lines. Remember when no one outside the Vietnamese community could figure out how to pronounced Nguyen? Well, the linguistic malaise strikes with equal opportunity. My favorite fudge was by "Catfish In Black Bean Sauce’s" Chi Muoi Lo who simply butchered the title of Joan Chen’s "Xiu Xiu" (correctly pronounced "shoo shoo" in Mandarin) by calling it "zoo zoh". Lo was hardly alone — Chinese presenters, so used to their own monosyllabic surnames, tripped up on longer Japanese names, Japanese hacked on Pipilino names and I’m not sure anyone outside the Thai community really has a firm handle of their 12-syllable monikers. Only the Koreans seemed to escape unscathed with their simple Lees and Kims.
One can only hope that Angela Perez Baraquio the new Miss America (a Pinay from Hawaii), can live up to her role as cultural ambassador by making sure she can nail every name from Ng to Pongprapapun. Speaking of which — should we be happy or wary that three of the top three finalists in this year’s Miss America contest were Asian American? Post your response on the message boards.