The artists of the Sansei Granddaughters' Jorney exhibit. Left to Right: Na Omi Judy Shintani, Reiko Fujii, Ellen Bepp, Shari Arai DeBoer, and Kathy Fujii-Oka - photo by Bob Hsiang

 

Japanese American Artists Pay Homage to Ancestors Incarcerated at Internment Camps
By Sunita Sohrabji

 

Eighty years after the incarceration of more than 126,000 Japanese Americans at internment camps, a group of women artists, known as the  Sansei Granddaughters , have come together to pay homage to their ancestors.

The artists point to similarities occurring today, including the incarceration of children and families at the US/Mexico border, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the escalation of anti-Asian American hate violence.

The five women have created an art exhibit, “Sansei Granddaughters’ Journey: From Remembrance to Resistance.” Their work is currently on display until Sept 3 at the AZ Gallery at The Shops at Tanforan in San Bruno, California. The participating artists are Shari Arai DeBoer, Ellen Bepp, Reiko Fujii, Kathy Fujii-Oka, and Na Omi Judy Shintani, all from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their work includes video, installation works, prints, paintings, and mixed media pieces and can be viewed  online .

The artists discuss their work.

“It is imperative that this atrocity lived by our families is described accurately,” said artist  Na Omi Judy Shintani . “Using the correct terminology is crucial to understanding our history. We use the word ‘incarceration’ to emphasize the fact that a majority were US citizens who were punished for looking like the enemy and treated as guilty without due process of law.”

 “People who are different are not necessarily dangerous, even if they ‘resemble’ the enemy in some way,” Shintani said. “Learning from the past can lead to the equitable and humane treatment of all people.”

The artists are hoping the exhibit will travel across the US, after it closes next weekend. As part of the installation, the gallery will host a special event August 28: “Tsuru For Solidarity Art and Social Justice Talk.” The event will feature the screening of two films, “Flying Cranes,” and “ Tsuru History .” Award-winning director/producer  Emiko Omori  will introduce the films.

The Tanforan site is particularly significant: in 1942, the racetrack was repurposed into a temporary detention center which imprisoned nearly 8,000 people, mostly Japanese Americans from the San Francisco Bay Area, for almost six months. 

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order in February, 1942, removing all people of Japanese ancestry from their homes.  Many never returned to their homes since they were foreclosed due to their inability to pay a mortgage while incarcerated.

There were 10 internment camps across the US. During a trip to Manzanar Camp, the five women artists came up with the idea of jointly exhibiting their art. They created a 27-minute documentary film,  “Sansei Granddaughters Journey,”  which charts the lives of their parents and grandparents who lived at the camp.

“My father was born in America, lived in Japan during this adolescence, but then returned to the US at the age of 18 by himself,” artist  Reiko Fujii  noted in an interview with EMS. Her father returned to the US without the ability to speak English, and faced a great deal of prejudice as he navigated the customs of his new land. “He felt so much prejudice,” she said.

In 1942, Fujii’s father was first incarcerated at Manzanar Camp in California. He was transferred to Tule Lake Camp in California and, in 1946, ended up at Crystal City Camp in south Texas. Her mother was also incarcerated at Manzanar and Crystal City, but the couple did not meet until 1949 at the home of a friend in Los Angeles.

“I could see how incarceration affected my father. He was very confused about why he was a prisoner. He had less confidence, less self-esteem. All of that was passed down to me,” she said. “But growing up, my parents never told us what camp was.”

As she studied at UC Berkeley Fujii learned about the incarceration camps. In 2021, she released a documentary,  “Detained Alien Enemy,”  which features — in part — portraits of hundreds of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated.

“My art is not abstract. I want to tell stories from the point of view of the people who were held unjustly imprisoned,” said Fujii. “Not everyone hated being in the camps. Elderly people helped bring up children. Teenagers had boyfriends and girlfriends. There were women who learned to sing and became known for their talent.”

For the exhibit, Fujii created “Detained Alien Enemy Glass Kimono II,” made from thousands of pieces of hand cut glass, fused together to make 240 squares. Each frame displays an image of one or more persons of Japanese ancestry while they were unjustly imprisoned during World War II.

Separately, a permanent installation —  The Tanforan Memorial  — was unveiled August 27 outside the San Bruno, California BART station. This installation features a replica horse stall in which those incarcerated were housed. It also features a plaza and a bronze statue — based on photographs taken in 1942 by Dorothea Lange — of the Mochida sisters, two young girls dressed in their Sunday best on the way to the Tanforan incarceration center. – Ethnic Media Services