Japanese American National Museum Is Standing Up to Trump's Attacks on History

"Days after starting his second term, President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders that targeted DEI programs and policies for elimination, decrying them as illegal and immoral. Museums across the country scrambled to react - and in many cases, comply. Within days, Washington's National Gallery of Art announced it would close its office of belonging and inclusion and remove the words "diversity, equity, access and inclusion" from its list of values on its website."

"Founded in 1992 at the site of a historic Buddhist temple in L.A.'s Little Tokyo, the museum took a stand against Trump and his anti-DEI edicts while other museums acquiesced. Two weeks after the Smithsonian shuttered its DEI office and stripped its websites of DEI-related language, JANM's leaders announced that they would not waver from their commitment to DEI or their mission of telling the full truth about the Japanese American experience, World War II incarceration camps and all."

Executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion prompted many museums to close DEI offices and remove DEI language from public materials. The National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian quickly eliminated DEI references, while the Japanese American National Museum took a different path and publicly affirmed its DEI commitments. JANM, founded in 1992 at a historic Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo, adopted the slogan "We will scrub nothing" and maintained its mission to tell the full truth about the Japanese American experience and World War II incarceration. JANM faced financial consequences, losing federal grants including $660,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities against an operating budget of about $13 million.

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