Personal Expression Part 2

Sento at Sixth and Main: Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American Heritage by Gail Dubrow with Donna Graves

For several years now I have been exploring my Japanese heritage. I have concentrated on the aesthetics and culture of Japan and traveled to Kyoto, Japan last October. There, I immersed myself in the temples, gardens and flea markets, looking for any connection to my own art and aesthetics. I had not given much thought to the Japanese American history and legacy around me. I recently met Mary Higuchi, an artist, who paints about the Japanese American experience during World War II. She has personal experiences to express in her paintings. She has received many awards for her EO 9066 (Executive Order 9066) series.

Mary Higuchi was born in Los Angeles in 1939. On Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the mass removal and incarceration of "all persons of Japanese ancestry" on the West coast. Mary and her family were imprisoned at the U.S. War Relocation Authority Concentration Camp in Arizona, 1942-1945.

By the summer of 1942, virtually the entire Nikkei (Japanese American) population on the West coast--120,000-- had vanished from their homes, farms, businesses, and schools. Included were 40,000 Issei (1st generation immigrants) and 70,000 Nisei (second generation born in America).

Each single person and head of family was to register and receive identification tags. They were given one week to dispose of all their belongings. They then boarded buses and trains, guarded by armed military police, to be taken to camps located in deserts with severe dust storms, harsh summers and freezing winters. Families lived in communal tar paper barracks, enclosed by barbed wire and towers with armed guards. Below is a painting by Roger Shimomura.

Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints and installations address sociopolitical issues of Asian America. Roger, along with his family, were incarcerated in the Minidoka relocation camp in Idaho 1942-1944.

Many of Shimomura's paintings are based on his immigrant grandmother's diaries. Who Shimomura was, where he came from, and how he was viewed by others became a driving force in his work. He not only has based many of his paintings on his Minidoka camp experiences, but also on stereotypes, race and cultural misunderstandings. He believes in the importance of history and the lessons that must be remembered in the future.

Shimomura has had over 125 solo shows and is in the permanent collections of over 80 museums. You can find his work in several galleries including the Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, WA and some catalogs of his work are available at Amazon.com. You can go his website here for his bio and more information about his art.

One source for more information is JAPANESE AMERICANS AND WORLD WAR II: Mass Removal, Imprisonment, and Redress by Donald Teruo Hata and Nadine Ishitani Hata. Another source is WORDS CAN LIE OR CLARIFY by Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga. (During this dark period of American history, congressional officials, as well as President Roosevelt, referred to these relocation centers as "concentration camps). Soon after the incarceration process began, intelligence agencies knew that Japanese Americans posed no threat to the United States during World War II.