Japan Firms to Help Fund L.A. Museum : Culture: $10-million pledge represents turnaround for business leaders who generally have not recognized the help Japanese-Americans gave in opening U.S. to trade.

In a significant turnabout from decades of indifference to their U.S. cousins, members of Japan’s leading business group Thursday approved a record $10-million fund-raising target for the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

The museum is scheduled to open next April in Little Tokyo. The collection of more than 10,000 objects and 15,000 photographs will detail the history and culture of Japanese in America.

Thursday’s action by a committee of the Keidanren, an organization of Japan’s largest companies, is regarded as a watershed in what has been a history of awkward relations and mutual embarrassment between Japan and Japanese America. Even though many Japanese-Americans played an important role in helping Japanese firms overcome distrust and gain a foothold in the U.S. after World War II, that contribution has generally gone unrecognized.

Instead, some Japanese have shunned Japanese-Americans as poor immigrants who abandoned their motherland, officials on both sides of the Pacific acknowledge. In turn, some Japanese-Americans have squirmed at the image of Japanese as camera-toting nerds or greedy economic predators.

The Keidanren action, the largest Japanese commitment ever to a Japanese-American cause, was hailed by Irene Hirano, the museum’s executive director and president, as “important recognition” of the roles that Japanese-Americans have played as consultants, attorneys and friends for firms ranging from electronics giants Sony and Kenwood to porcelain manufacturer Mikasa and food processor Kikkoman.

Until now, she said, Japanese have tended to contribute to nationally prestigious universities or art centers, while aid to Japanese-American causes could “be counted on one hand.”

The Keidanren’s target figure represents just over 40% of the museum’s overall goal of $24 million. Yoshio Nakamura, the Keidanren’s deputy director of international economic affairs, said the group hopes to collect the $10 million by April from its member firms, as well as from some prefectural governments.

Ever since the Keidanren began its corporate philanthropy program in 1989, it has been deluged with hundreds of funding requests from all over the world. Including the museum and four other projects for which contributions were approved Thursday, the group has pledged to raise money for 27 projects in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France and Thailand, according to Takashi Hosomi, chairman of the philanthropy committee.

Yoshimi Ishikawa, a member of the organization’s committee for better corporate citizenship, which approved the museum project, agreed that it is a belated recognition of the debt Japanese owe their U.S. cousins.

“I hate to say this, but many Japanese considered Japanese-Americans as poor people who had to leave the country because they couldn’t make it,” said Ishikawa, a Tokyo-based writer. “For 100 years, Japanese just ignored the immigrant community. Now it’s really time to pay them back, do something to show our appreciation and forge a new relationship.”

Ishikawa noted that Japanese interests own six of California’s top 10 banks, generate 10% of California’s total business revenue and have bought high-profile properties ranging from the Arco Towers to the Pebble Beach Co. and its resort properties. But they would never have been able to gain that foothold without Japanese-Americans fighting laws that, for instance, barred Japanese from owning land in 11 states until the 1950s.

“When I give that history to Japanese business groups in speeches, they are really shocked. Old-timers remember, but most have no idea,” Ishikawa said.

Ishikawa helped spark Japanese interest in their U.S. descendants last year with his book, “Strawberry Road,” about his experiences as an immigrant working on his brother’s strawberry farm in Pomona. The book became a best-seller and movie in Japan.

Another coming book has been written by Sen Nishiyama, a U.S.-born, naturalized Japanese citizen who gained fame interpreting for the Apollo flights and former Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer. His book, to be published Dec. 8 in Japan, details how the Japanese-American community paved the way for Japanese firms by working to overturn hostile attitudes and more than 500 laws specifically aimed against Japanese.

“Many Japanese take it for granted that they can buy property, stay in first-class hotels in the United States. A lot of them think they get decent treatment because they have a super economy and are on the cutting edge of technology,” Nishiyama said. “I tell them, ‘No way. You generate envy or in the worst case, hate. Any treatment of equality is built on the tears, blood and lives of the Nisei (second-generation Japanese-Americans) work after Pearl Harbor.’ ”