A brief stroll through San Jose’s Japanese American Museum reveals a deep and rich perspective of the role that Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans played in the history and society of California and the Santa Clara Valley.
The museum’s permanent exhibit is made up of donated items from the local community.
The museum staff is primarily volunteers and trained docents who are either familiar with history or lived through the events of the internment camps. Guided tours provide perspective of history to be shared, but wandering by oneself allows for a more thorough review of the pieces of history shown.
Exhibits detail early Japanese life in Santa Clara Valley, farming, WWII and the internment process, and on post-WWII life and resettlement in California. Summaries give context to many of the pieces and photographs shown. California history is always present in one form or another in all the exhibits, and a strong connection to the Santa Clara Valley.
Pre-WWII Displays
The Japanese involvement in the Santa Clara valley was large and at the same time segregated from the rest of the community. The “Pioneers of Japantown” exhibit explains a lot of this. At one time, the area that became San Jose Japantown was shared with the existing Chinatown. When the old community was destroyed, a newer one was built over it.
San Jose’s Japanese American Museum gives a lot of detail to the kinds of businesses that existed in Japantown, including dental offices and a hospital. One of the display pieces is a dental chair and tools from the Japantown dental office that operated at the time.
Sports and social events were a mainstay of the exhibit, detailing they all played a part in the day-to-day lives of the Japanese community. The San Jose Ashai baseball team is a prime example, with its display showing how sports were integrated into the social fabric of San Jose Japanese life. The Ashai baseball team comprised at first of Issei, or first generation Japanese, but after 1917 became mostly Nisei, or second generation American born Japanese.
The display sheds light on how the team was founded, displays the original check that was written to fund the team’s formation, and the Ashai’s victory over the Tokyo Giants. Other sports included judo and sumo wrestling.
Education and religion is a focus for the The “Pioneers of Japantown” exhibit, detailing how spiritual and school activities aided in establishing an identity in the early twentieth century.
Japanese Farming Exhibit
One of the greatest contributions that the Japanese provided to California was agricultural skills. The museum’s displays demonstrate how hard Japanese farmers worked, elaborating on the techniques pioneered and the grueling, often long hours that many had to work in order to be successful.
The exhibit lacks a more thorough explanation of what Japanese farmers contributed to the agricultural area. It does provide some local perspective of the Santa Clara Valley, but not enough to create a clear idea.
There is some mention that the success that Japanese American farmers enjoyed caused enough enmity from white farmers that it generated the 1913 Alien Land Act.
More detail could have been given to this part of Japanese American history, but the museum provides enough information to create a sketch for those interested.
Internment and World War II Exhibits
The Japanese American Museum’s main focus is on the World War II Japanese camps and its impact on the local community. It dedicates numerous resources and space to this, including displays of all 10 internment camps and the numerous assembly and relocation centers that existed. Two relocation camps existed in California, one in Tule Lake and the other at Manzanar.
One of the most prominent pieces of the museum is a life size replica of an assembly center barracks room where Japanese internees were forced to live. All the furniture is apparently hand built and duplicated exactly from the original version.
Overall the museum gives a large perspective on the history of local Santa Clara Valley Japanese Americans, and pays enormous detail to the internment during World War II.
- Japanese American Museum of San Jose
- 535 North Fifth Street
- San Jose, CA, 95112
- Hours: Thursday-Sunday noon-4 p.m.
Jack Barnwell - Jack Barnwell is a San Francisco Bay Area photojournalist, portrait photographer and freelance writer. He has photographed and written ...
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