The National Japanese American Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in San Francisco's Japantown. Its mission is to collect, preserve, and share the history and culture of Japanese Americans. The society maintains archives that include photographs, documents, oral histories, and artifacts spanning more than a century of Japanese American life. These materials document everything from the early immigrant communities of the late nineteenth century to the contemporary Japanese American experience, providing resources for researchers, educators, and community members.

San Francisco's Japantown is one of only three surviving Japantowns in the United States, along with those in Los Angeles and San Jose. Before World War II, dozens of Japanese American communities existed along the West Coast. The forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during the war destroyed most of them permanently. San Francisco's Japantown survived, though diminished, and has since faced ongoing threats from redevelopment and rising property values. The Historical Society's presence in Japantown is itself an act of preservation, anchoring the community's history in the neighborhood where it was lived.

While the internment camps of World War II are the most widely known chapter of Japanese American history, the Historical Society's work extends far beyond that period. Exhibitions and programs address the contributions of Japanese Americans to agriculture, business, arts, and civic life. The society documents the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history, composed largely of Japanese Americans who fought for a country that had imprisoned their families. The full story, told without flinching, is one of resilience, patriotism, and the persistent tension between American ideals and American actions.