Japanese American National Museum hit with subsidy cuts
The Japanese American National Museum, or JANM, in Los Angeles is struggling with subsidy cuts by the Elon Musk-led "Department of Government Efficiency," also known as DOGE.
The museum said that the subsidy cuts may force it to cancel workshops for teachers on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The museum expected to receive about $190,000 in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, but that is now uncertain due to the termination of subsidies for the public organization that provides funding to museums and libraries.
More than 100 teachers from 31 states attended the workshops in the past two years.
The museum has received some donation offers following local media reports on the situation, but it is still $93,600 short of funding for this year's workshops, which will be attended by 72 teachers.
"Affecting museums and libraries nationwide, these cuts are part of the current administration's attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion and its ongoing efforts to erase history," William Fujioka, chair of the museum's board of trustees, said in a statement.
Since the start of his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has been working on the abolition of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.
"Our museum stands as a place of memory, truth, and justice, where history is not only preserved but actively used to confront contemporary threats to democracy and human dignity," Fujioka said.
"At a time when many agencies and organizations have scrubbed their websites of references to DEI, JANM vows to scrub nothing," he added.
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