A JOINT CONFERENCE OF THE JACSC AND USC ITO CENTER

The Japanese American Confinement Sites Consortium (JACSC) and USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture (USC Ito Center) hosted a free joint conference at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles, California.  

How do the makers of monuments today conceive of memory, especially when memorializing difficult historical events? This conference brought together leading figures in memory and monument work who focus on racial and religious exclusion and trauma affecting myriad communities in the US and around the world.

Building upon the 2020 and 2021 virtual conferences, JACSC brought together practitioners in preservation, education, and advocacy related to the Japanese American  experience. JACSC serves as a national professional network and resource hub for member individuals and organizations to learn from one another, with the aim of advancing the field as a whole.

JACSC partnered with Dr. Duncan Ryuken Williams, Director of the USC Ito Center, whose inspirational project Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration addresses the attempted erasure of individuals of Japanese ancestry who experienced wartime incarceration by memorializing their names in a multi-modal monuments project. Through this expanded approach, the conference looked at cross-community and global perspectives in order to contextualize Japanese American confinement sites in a broader milieu.