Interviews

1. Always drawing

2. Larry designing chairs in the camp

3. Larry’s fishing skill

4. Mother’s reaction to Larry's daredevil racing

5. Larry and President Clinton

6. Corvette Hall of Fame

Nakamura,Grace Aiko

Sister of automotive designer Larry Shinoda

Always drawing

Well we were...both of us [Grace and Lawrence “Larry” Shinoda] were always drawing, our mother could draw very well, our father could too. And so it was kind of just a natural thing. My mother always had a little box of pencils on top of the radio and this big stack of recycled papers: shopping bags, grocery bags, she would cut up Shoe holes, all these papers. And then, our prized possession was this big blackboard that we had behind, there was a swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room, and they had this big blackboard that our uncles gave us one Christmas. And we would divide the board in half, and sometimes he [Larry] would have half the board and I would have the other half or sometimes we would do a big picture together. And we just were always drawing.

art arts drawing graphic arts

Date: September 9, 2011

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Grace Aiko (Shinoda) Nakamura was 15 years old when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. On May 16, 1942, her family of seven boarded a train at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and was sent to the Manzanar concentration camp in California.

In Manzanar, Grace’s younger brother Larry designed for his mother and grandmother two chairs made from recycled wooden toilet crates—complete with arm rests and reclining backs. They became a camp “sensation” attracting many admiring spectators. Larry later became a world-renowned designer whose designs for the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray and the Boss 429 Mustang remain highly admired.

In spring of 1944 Grace, Larry and their mother left Manzanar on a bus and moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. The Quakers American Friends Service Japanese American Student Relocation Project awarded Grace a scholarship to the University of Redlands and she became the first Japanese American college student to return to California, graduating with Honors. The day after graduating, she started a teaching career in the Pasadena School District--the first Japanese American hired. She eventually earned two Masters Degrees and continued a career in education and fine arts. She is married to Yosh Nakamura, a college professor of art, and has three children. (September 2012)