Nothing was going to stop this museum about injustice. Not even a riot.
May 15, 1992: The Japanese American National Museum opened its doors to the public just days after the Rodney King verdict sparked the Los Angeles riots.
Los Angeles was still in shock.
Fires had torn through neighborhoods across the city. Thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed. The National Guard had been deployed. Fear, anger, and exhaustion lingered in the air.
And yet, in Little Tokyo, a museum dedicated to one of America’s greatest civil rights failures opened anyway.
On April 29, 1992, four LAPD officers charged in the beating of Rodney King were acquitted by a mostly white jury in Simi Valley. The verdict triggered one of the largest civil uprisings in modern American history.
For days, Los Angeles descended into chaos. More than 60 people were killed. Thousands were injured. Fires and looting spread across large portions of the city, including areas near Little Tokyo.
The timing for a museum opening could hardly have seemed worse.
AP Photo / David Longstreath
Rodney King speaks to reporters after the acquittal of four LAPD officers charged in his beating sparked the Los Angeles riots.
Gary Leonard / Los Angeles Public Library
The unrest spread across Los Angeles, including areas near Little Tokyo, just days before the Japanese American National Museum opened to the public.
Courtesy of National Go For Broke Education Center
Colonel Young Oak Kim, decorated veteran of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, helped push for the creation of JANM.
Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum
Bruce Kaji sits in front of the former Nishi Hongwanji temple building in Little Tokyo, where the Japanese American National Museum first opened in 1992.
The Fear That History Would Disappear
The Japanese American National Museum did not emerge overnight. For decades after World War II, many former incarcerees rarely discussed their experiences publicly.
Some believed silence was the only way to move forward. Others feared reopening painful memories. As the Nisei generation grew older, community leaders became increasingly worried that the stories, artifacts, photographs, and personal histories connected to incarceration could disappear forever.
One of the people who recognized that urgency was Colonel Young-Oak Kim. A decorated veteran of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Young-Oak Kim believed Japanese American history needed a permanent home.
He and members of a committee approached Bruce Kaji, a former Manzanar incarceree, MIS veteran, accountant, and community leader, about helping create such an institution.
Bruce Kaji and the Vision
Kaji understood what was at stake.
The incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II had already been minimized, misunderstood, or forgotten by much of the country. Without preservation, future generations might never fully understand what had happened. Bruce Kaji became one of the driving forces behind the museum, alongside a wider network of community leaders and supporters, including his son Jon Kaji.
Born in Los Angeles and incarcerated at Manzanar as a teenager, Kaji spent decades helping rebuild and protect Little Tokyo after the war. He helped establish Merit Savings & Loan, served in public office, and fought redevelopment efforts that threatened the historic neighborhood.
Now he focused his energy on preserving memory itself. Kaji helped secure funding, political support, leadership, and eventually a location for the museum inside Little Tokyo.
Photo by Eliot Elisofon
The first group of Japanese-Americans arrive at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, one of ten major incarceration camps during WWII, 1942
Courtesy of Austi Kaji
Bruce Kaji during the U.S. occupation of Japan following World War II.
The Japanese American National Museum opened to the public on May 15, 1992 inside the historic former Nishi Hongwanji temple building in Little Tokyo.
The Museum Opened Anyway
When the Japanese American National Museum officially opened to the public in May 1992, it was still relatively small compared to the institution it would later become.
But its mission was enormous.
The museum sought not only to preserve artifacts, photographs, and documents, but also testimony, memory, and warning. A museum dedicated to the consequences of racism, fear, mass hysteria, and civil rights failures opened during one of Los Angeles’ most explosive moments of racial unrest.
Outside, helicopters circled over a wounded city. Inside, Japanese American families shared stories many had spent decades trying to bury. The contrast was impossible to ignore.
The museum opened anyway.
Why JANM Matters
The museum first opened inside the historic Nishi Hongwanji temple building in Little Tokyo — the very neighborhood where Japanese Americans had been rounded up and removed during World War II.
The Japanese American National Museum would eventually grow into one of the most important Asian American museums in the United States.
Millions of visitors would pass through its exhibits. Survivors of incarceration would record oral histories. Younger generations would encounter stories many schools never taught.
What began as an effort to preserve Japanese American memory became something larger: A reminder of how fragile civil rights can become when fear overtakes principle.
Photo by Toyo Miyatake
Japanese Americans gather outside the Nishi Hongwanji temple building in Little Tokyo before being removed and sent to incarceration camps during World War II.
Courtesy of the Japanese American National Museum
Today, the Japanese American National Museum stands in Little Tokyo as one of the most important Asian American museums in the United States.