Interviews

1. Getting measles at the camp

2. His sister’s reaction to the camp

3. His mother’s money belt

4. Differences between Parents

5. His father’s American Dream

6. Allyship after camp

7. Coming back from camp

8. Being an outsider

9. Running Japanese store

10. Starting out in Art

11. About Orange Crate Label

12. His mother’s experience of the camp

13. “I did what I wanted to do”

Sakoguchi,Ben

(b. 1938) Japanese American painter & printmaker

His sister’s reaction to the camp

That’s my sister. Did you ever read that? She says when she went to camp, because we lived in the barrios and there were a few black families, a couple white families, but mostly Mexican Americans.

But when she came to camp, she was a little bit older than I was, she said “why did they put us here with all these Japanese people?” You know? Because to her it was a strange environment!

imprisonment incarceration

Date: September 8, 2011

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki, Kris Kuramitsu

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

Interviewee Bio

Ben Sakoguchi, born in 1938, is a painter and printmaker who has lived in the Los Angeles area his entire life, except for the time when he and his family were incarcerated in Poston Arizona. After studying painting in the 1960s at the University of California, Los Angeles, he developed a distinctive style that is rooted in pairing a narrative painting tradition with a pop culture vocabulary. He is best known for his long running “Orange Crate Label” series, using the classic crate label format to explore diverse subject matter and to combine them in a way that allows for both sharp critique and wry humor. His work is deeply and politically engaged, and he takes a deep delight in the craft and beauty of painting itself. Sakoguchi was a professor at Pasadena City College for nearly 35 years. Visit his website at bensakoguchi.com. (Oct. 2011)