Takeshi Ban was an Issei congregational minister from Kumamoto prefecture, and a president of the Pacific Society of Religious Education. The collection consists of documents, publications, and phonographs records, and 3D objects spanning from 1902 to 1986. The film portion of the collection has been transferred to the National Film Center of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo in 2007.

Takeshi Ban, an Issei congregational minister from Kumamoto prefecture, moved to Hawaii in 1910 and to mainland in 1913. After 1931 he established the Pacific Society of Religious Education (Taiheiyo Bunka Kyoikukai) and was the principal of the Pacific Cultural Institute (Taiheiyo Bunka Gakuin) in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. He went around the nation giving lectures about Japanese culture to Nisei youth. He also showed Japanese films with his lectures. He was connected with Fuji-kan theatre in Little Tokyo before the war and was a benshi (narrator) for the Japanese silent films. He was also the president of the Pacific Bureau of New Musical Study, which distributed Japanese records to Academic institutions in the United States.

10 linear feet

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (collections@janm.org).

By appointment only. Please Contact the Collections Management and Access Unit by email (collections@janm.org) or telephone (213-830-5615).