What Happened Here?

Prior to World War II, anti-Asian and anti-Japanese sentiment was rampant and often officially sanctioned by federal and local governments. The United States government denied further immigration from Japan from 1924 to 1952. Japanese immigrants already living in the United States were denied the right to naturalize and to own real property.

Public opinion and public policy, with little protest, permitted the abrogation of the civil rights of Japanese Americans. This precedent, along with looking like the enemy during war, became sufficient cause to evict men, women and children from their homes and place them into barbed-wire enclosures in harsh and isolated locations in California, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, and Colorado.

The Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple was built as a place of worship in 1925 in Little Tokyo, the thriving center of the Japanese American community in Los Angeles. In 1942, it was designated an assembly point for thousands of Japanese American citizens prior to their removal to one of the 10 U.S. concentration camps. The Temple was then used as a site for storing belongings of the departed Japanese Americans and later served as a residential hostel upon their return to Los Angeles. It returned to its intended use as a Temple in 1945.

The Temple housed the Japanese American National Museum from 1992 to 2000. In fall of 2004, it will be transformed into the headquarters of the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy whose mission is to promote principles of democracy and civic participation. The National Center and the Japanese American National Museum are connected by a public plaza and together constitute an important site for civic life.

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What Happened Here?