Japanese American National Museum

A week ago or so, I partook in a five-day PD at the Museum of Contemporary Art. At the Geffen, we were encouraged to visit JANM with our students if we had the chance. Today's visit showed me why the students would greatly benefit from the museum. Our tour was led by a docent who was in a concentration camp. These camps were called this way until the public became aware of them, which is when the name was changed. The latter demonstrates our country knew the horrors it was doing to a select group of people and wanted to continue without judgement from the public. Unfortunately, this reminds me too much of what is currently happening in our 'detention centers'. We teach history in hopes of learning and growing. Museums and monuments of remembrance are made to pay respect to those who have come before us and perhaps to keep the past alive in hopes that history will not repeat itself. Looking at the news, I'm unsure if we are progressing or simply repeating the same mistakes. Towards the latter part of our tour, Mas, the docent, showed us images taken by Dorothea Lange, Hansel Mieth, and Russell Lee. In some images, people are seen playing a sport; in others, they appear to be smiling. Mas revealed that the photographers were not allowed to take pictures of the soldiers, nor were they allowed to take pictures of the wires that separated the people in the camps from the life they were torn from. The photographs were censored, making it appear like nothing wrong was happening in these facilities. At the MOCA, we went over VTS (visual teaching strategies). I can see myself using VTS with the works of Lange, Mieth, and Lee.