Volunteers flocked to scrub protest graffiti off the Japanese American National Museum

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

Images of the vandalized walls at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo popped up on Kimiko Carpenter's social media feeds, and the West L.A. mom and hospice volunteer felt impelled to help.
So she stopped at Anawalt Lumber to buy $50 of rags, gloves, scraping brushes and canisters of graffiti remover, drove east to downtown and quite literally rolled up her sleeves.
Wiping sweat off her brow with the elbow of her white button-down shirt, Carpenter said she had no official affiliation with the museum but was half Japanese and had volunteered there years ago as a teenager.
Working to remove the spray paint scrawled across the windows felt like a tangible thing she could do in the few hours she had before she had to pick up her young children from school on the Westside.
JANM, as it's known, is an institution that knows a thing or two about immigrants in America, belonging and othering, and what it looks like when rights are suspended without due process.
The museum centers on the Japanese American experience in the United States and the excruciating lessons of the community's incarceration during World War II.
'This is the very last place anybody should be tagging,' said Susan Jekarl, a Glendale-based activist who'd separately shown up with several friends in tow to scrub windows at JANM.
Jekarl, a former docent at the museum, said her 'soul just like dropped' when she saw the first tags outside the building while marching on Sunday. There was far more defacement over the next 24 hours.
'We want peaceful resistance. We don't want people hurting Little Tokyo,' she said. She was confident the 'agitators' didn't know what this place stood for.
Monday's protests were largely calmer than the havoc on Sunday, but damage was wrought downtown, particularly around Little Tokyo and in the Jewelry District.
Mayor Karen Bass decried the violence and vandalism in downtown neighborhoods as 'unacceptable' but also reiterated that it was limited to a small geographic area.
'The visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case at all,' Bass said.
She spoke to the terror and uncertainty rippling through immigrant communities after the raids and said she was unsure what the Marines arriving in Greater Los Angeles on Tuesday planned to do. On Tuesday evening, she implemented a local overnight curfew for most of downtown, which she said would probably remain in place for several days.
Defense Secretary and former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth told lawmakers Tuesday that the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles would cost at least $134 million and last at least 60 days.
Today's great photo is from Times photographer Myung J. Chun at famed songwriter Allee Willis' home, dubbed Willis Wonderland, which has been reimagined as a pop-up book so anyone can see inside.
Julia Wick, staff writerKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [e-mail]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.