March 12, 2017 - Today we were in Los Angeles to visit the Japanese American National Museum. The museum is dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans and is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum contains over 130 years of Japanese American history, dating back to the first Issei generation. One of their current exhibits is called "Instructions to All Persons: Reflections on Executive Order 9066." On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which paved the way for the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast following Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The gallery where the executive order 9066 was displayed didn't allow photography, but we did view the original two page document signed by President Roosevelt.
The 1942 picture below shows Japanese Americans boarding buses headed for the various detention camps. The second picture below shows that same building today.
Notice pictures of some of the detention camps below.
The incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans was a very sad chapter in American history, however, the museum counterbalanced that story with an exhibit from George Takei's personal collection. Takei was incarcerated for four years during this period, beginning at age five.
Before going to the museum, we tried something new for lunch, the Smorgasburg LA. It's only open on Sundays and it located on the five acre site of the weekday Alameda Produce Market. The dozens of vendors here provide food, shopping and drinks. It is a very fun place to go, although deciding what you want to eat is difficult.
We decided on lobsters at Lobsterdamus. How can you not like a whole lobster split down the middle and cooked over a charcoal grill? The Cajun butter on it is delicious!
That was our lunch being prepared.
We brought our lobsters over to the beer garden and our brews were dispensed in an unusual manner.
We've never seen a wood fired pizza oven on a truck before!
To top it off, we went to the Ensaymada Project booth and split a red velvet Filipino brioche. It was fantastic!
This was a great adventure.
