Japanese American Museum of San Jose

Last updated
Japanese American Museum of San Jose
Japanese American Museum of San Jose logo.png
2017 Japanese American Museum of San Jose.jpg
Japanese American Museum of San Jose
Established1987
Location Japantown, San Jose, California
TypeHistory and culture of Japanese Americans
Website www.jamsj.org

The Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) is located at 535 N. Fifth Street in San Jose, in the heart of Japantown. The museum's mission is to collect, preserve, and share Japanese American art, history, and culture with an emphasis on the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Contents

History

The JAMsj was established in November 1987. It grew out of a 1984-86 research project on Japanese American farmers in the Santa Clara Valley. The farming project collected family histories, historical photographs, private memoirs and other unpublished documents and led to the development of a curriculum package on Japanese American history, which was adopted for use by the San Jose Unified and East Side Union High School Districts. JAMsj's workshop on developing family histories provided documentary materials and photos included in the award-winning book Japanese Legacy: Farming and Community Life in California's Santa Clara Valley (1985) co-authored by Timothy J. Lukes, Ph.D. and Gary Y. Okihiro, Ph.D. [1]

The museum started in the historic Issei Memorial Building (formerly the Kuwabara Hospital) with the help and support of the Japanese American Citizens League, San Jose Chapter. In 2002, the name changed from Japanese American Resource Center/Museum (JARC/M) to Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) to better reflect the museum's archival focus. JAMsj now occupies the former residence of Tokio Ishikawa, M.D. two doors south on North Fifth Street. [1]

The original JAMsj building was demolished in 2008. The new museum re-opened in October, 2010.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Peninsula</span> Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Mountain View, in Santa Clara County, south of Palo Alto and north of Sunnyvale and Los Altos. Most of the Peninsula is occupied by San Mateo County, between San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, and including the cities and towns of Atherton, Belmont, Brisbane, Burlingame, Colma, Daly City, East Palo Alto, El Granada, Foster City, Hillsborough, Half Moon Bay, La Honda, Loma Mar, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Pacifica, Palo Alto, Pescadero, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, San Mateo, South San Francisco, and Woodside.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Jose, California</span> City in California, United States

San Jose, officially the City of San José, is the largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2022 population of 971,233, it is the most populous city in both the Bay Area and the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland Combined Statistical Area—which in 2022 had a population of 7.5 million and 9.0 million respectively—the third-most populous city in California after Los Angeles and San Diego, and the 12th-most populous in the United States. Located in the center of the Santa Clara Valley on the southern shore of San Francisco Bay, San Jose covers an area of 179.97 sq mi (466.1 km2). San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County and the main component of the San Jose–Sunnyvale–Santa Clara Metropolitan Statistical Area, with an estimated population of around two million residents in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Diocese of San José in California</span> Latin Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction in California, USA

The Diocese of San José in California is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Santa Clara County in California in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the metropolitan Archdiocese of San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japantown, San Francisco</span> Neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States

Japantown, also known as J-Town or historically as Japanese Town, is a neighborhood in the Western Addition district of San Francisco, California. Japantown comprises about six city blocks and is considered one of the largest and oldest ethnic enclaves in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japantown, San Jose</span> Neighborhood of San Jose in Santa Clara, California, United States

Japantown, commonly known as J Town, is a historic cultural district of San Jose, California, north of Downtown San Jose. Historically a center for San Jose's Japanese American and Chinese American communities, San Jose's Japantown is one of only three Japantowns that still exist in the United States, alongside San Francisco's Japantown and Los Angeles's Little Tokyo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portuguese Historical Museum</span>

The Portuguese Historical Museum in San Jose, California, USA opened in 1997 and is a replica of the first permanent império originally built in San Jose's Little Portugal district, c. 1915. It is one of the featured attractions within History Park at Kelley Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington Township, Alameda County, California</span>

Washington Township is a former township of Alameda County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area region, which includes the present day cities of Union City, Fremont, and Newark. The first permanent settlement in the area was Mission San José, established in 1797. The township was formed in 1853, and named for president George Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Alameda, San Jose</span> Neighborhood of San Jose in Santa Clara, California, United States

The Alameda is a historic district of Central San Jose, California, west of Downtown San Jose. The district is centered on an alameda, a historic portion of El Camino Real connecting Downtown San Jose to Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and includes the smaller, surrounding neighborhoods to the north and east, like College Park and St. Leo's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coast Line (Union Pacific Railroad)</span> Railroad line in California along the Pacific coast

The Coast Line is a railroad line between Burbank, California and the San Francisco Bay Area, roughly along the Pacific Coast. It is the shortest rail route between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnews Developmental Center</span> United States historic place

Agnews Developmental Center was a psychiatric and medical care facility, located in Santa Clara, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Clara Transit Center</span> Train station in Santa Clara, California, U.S.

Santa Clara Transit Center is a railway station in downtown Santa Clara, California. It is served by Caltrain, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, and Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) trains. It is the planned terminus for the Silicon Valley BART extension into Santa Clara County. The former station building, constructed in 1863 by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, is used by the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History.

San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circle of Palms Plaza</span> Plaza in San Jose, California, US

The Circle of Palms Plaza is located in downtown San Jose, California. It is composed of a ring of palm trees encircling a California State Seal, and designates the California Historical Marker 461, the site of California's first state capital from 1849 to 1851.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Clara Valley Medical Center</span> Hospital in California, United States

Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, commonly known as Valley Medical Center or simply Valley Medical, is a prominent 731-bed public tertiary, teaching, and research hospital in San Jose, California. Located in the Fruitdale neighborhood of West San Jose, Valley Medical Center is the anchor facility of the Santa Clara County Health System, serving Santa Clara County. Valley Medical is home to numerous innovative research and care centers, such as the Rehabilitation Trauma Center, the only federally-designated spinal cord injury center in Northern California.

During the 19th century and early 20th century, San Jose, California, was home to a large Chinese-American community that was centered around the Santa Clara Valley's agricultural industry. Due to anti-Chinese sentiment and official discrimination, Chinese immigrants and their descendants lived in a succession of five Chinatowns from the 1860s to the 1930s:

There is a Japanese American and a Japanese national population in San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. The center of the Japanese and Japanese American community is in San Francisco's Japantown.

The following is a timeline of the history of San Jose, California, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Clara County Fairgrounds</span> Event venue in San Jose, California, U.S.

The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds is an event venue in San Jose, California. The 165-acre (67 ha) fairgrounds has been owned by the County of Santa Clara since 1940 and is operated by the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Management Corporation, a public-benefit nonprofit corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility</span>

The San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility is a wastewater treatment plant located in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jose, California. The facility treats 110 million U.S. gallons of wastewater per day, with a capacity of up to 167 million U.S. gal/d (630 ML/d), making it the largest tertiary treatment plant in the western United States. It serves 1.5 million residents and over 17,000 business facilities in eight cities. The 2,600-acre (1,100 ha) site is operated by the San Jose Environmental Services Department and jointly owned by the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara. It began operations in 1956 to address severe water pollution issues and played a key role in San Jose's aggressive annexation program during the 1950s and 1960s.

Heinlenville was a Chinese-American ethnic enclave in San Jose, California. Established in 1887 and demolished in 1931, it was the last and longest-lasting of San Jose's five Chinatowns.

References

  1. 1 2 Design, Rasteroids. "JAMsj - Japanese American Museum | San Jose's Japantown". www.jamsj.org. Retrieved 2017-02-26.

37°20′51″N121°53′36″W / 37.34754°N 121.89347°W / 37.34754; -121.89347