Director's Report

2008 has been a rewarding year for NJAHS in so many ways.

First, we've succeeded in receiving another $1 Million in public support for 2009 for the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center, which amounts to over $ 3.58 million in federal dollars since the start! These funds support the feasibility, cultural interpretation, preservation and rehabilitation of Building 640 hangar at the Presidio of San Francisco. We were buoyed by grassroots support from you, our members, the MIS veterans in Hawaii, the Japanese American Veterans Association, and the Japanese American Citizens League for endorsing this national effort. We are now developing the facilities management plan, permanent exhibition designs for the site, and a traveling exhibition to raise national awareness about the Nisei linguists of the Military Intelligence Service.

Second, we launched a themed series for the year Nikkei Diaspora and Global Connections for 2008. At our Awards Dinner, "Leading in the Asia Pacific Era" keynote Glen Fukushima, CEO of Airbus, Japan and Consul General Yasumasa Nagamine delivered very insightful and reflective thoughts about their past and a promising future ahead. We honored our trailblazing awardees and recognized a group of Japanese women scholars of the International Association for North American Ethnic Studies. In the NJAHS Peace Gallery, we presented exhibits: "Re-envisioning Community: Hapa Issues Forum 1992 - 2007", "Chimu ni Sumiri: the Heart to Heart Journey of Okinawan Culture" and "Transforming Kami: The Art of Origami". Together with the Consulate of Japan, we sponsored US-Japan Women's Dialogue: The Legacy of Japanese Women: Past, Present & Future, bringing together Nikkei women scholars on the topic of Japanese American women's history. Linking our past with the present, NJAHS and the Enemy Alien Files Consortium, headed by Julie Hatta and Grace Shimizu and supported by CCLPEP, participated with the Oakland Museum's Education Department in "Inalienable: Immigrant Rights: Youth Voices from World War II & Post 9-11". This culminated with a special community recognition award to the EAF Consortium by the Council on American-Islamic Relations-San Francisco Bay Area this fall.

Third, we focused our energies on grooming the next generation of leaders in historic preservation with a second year of our summer program, funded in part by the San Francisco Japantown Foundation and Joie de Vivre Hospitality. The NJAHS Japantown Cultural Tourism Initiative Summer Internship was a 12 week peer-to-peer hands-on intensive training, leadership development, digital storytelling, and investigative analysis which brought together the best and brightest youth from the community. In the short period of time, they each produced and screened for a community audience a digital film on themselves which touched on their heritage or experience, created a "Jtown on $20 a day" YouTube broadcast, held youth-led walking tours of Japantown and performed readings of a couple of plays.

In the coming year, we will continue our partnerships through the expansion of our Japanese American Cultural Tourism Initiative to Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco and shall plan a tour of a MIS exhibit nationwide.

Of course, we could not achieve this without the support and faith of our members, supporters, volunteers, funders and partners who continue to believe in our efforts to bring the story of the Nikkei experience to broader audiences.

We thank you very much.

Rosalyn Tonai