The Kokoro exhibit returning to the California Museum, 1020 O Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, from Dec. 20, 2025 – March 29, 2026.
Kokoro: The Story of Sacramento’s Lost Japantown, an exhibition that first appeared at the California Museum in 2017.
It features rare family photographs drawn from the personal collections of community members, the exhibit documents the memories at the heart of a once-thriving downtown community devastated first by forced removal during WWII and again by redevelopment in the 1950s.
Sacramento’s Nihonmachi (Japantown) spanned 8 city blocks, from 3rd and L Streets to 5th and P Streets, where over 120 businesses, civic organizations and churches were located in the early 1940s. Today, California’s first Nisei VFW Post, opened in 1947 on 4th between P and O Streets, is one of the few remnants of the once-thriving community.
Returning visitors can once again walk through the history and heart of this vanished neighborhood, while those experiencing it for the first time will discover a vital chapter of our city’s past—now enriched with additional rare photographs and artifacts from family collections.
Kokoro was developed in partnership with former residents of Sacramento’s Japantown, author of “Sacramento’s Historic Japantown: Legacy of a Lost Neighborhood“ Kevin Wildie and others.
(Source: Facebook/Florin JACL Sacramento Valley)
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California Museum, 1020 O Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
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