“I have told many times the story of how years ago I came across some of Franklin D. Roosevelt's writings from the 1920s, in which he endorsed legal discrimination against Japanese immigrants on the grounds that it helped preserve white ‘racial purity’ against interracial marriage,” scholar and author Greg Robinson …
“You could feel everyone in the park staring,” Alan Nakagawa says. “Why do they get to go in the Dome? It was like being a goldfish in a goldfish bowl. However, the moment we were inside, having only an hour of access, we went straight to work.”
“Growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, we were subjected to stereotypical portraits or invisibility,” Eddie Wong recalls. “We knew we could make a difference by providing an alternative in the form of books, photo exhibits, and eventually films and video.”
“The faces from the photographs staring up at me as I searched for my family in the National Archives have always haunted me,” Paul Kitagaki Jr., recalls. “I wanted to know the story behind the faces and discover how they survived and created a new life after the war.”
It took just seconds for U.S. President Ronald Reagan to sign the document. Yet the journey to that moment spanned more than four decades.
Artist/writer/performer Kip Fulbeck launched The Hapa Project in 2001, photographing more than 1,200 people of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander heritage. His intent was to raise awareness and understanding of multiracial people and to help them (especially children) form positive self-identities. The work led to a landmark book and related …
“Some people think my work looks like it’s speaking something like a megaphone,” says Shinpei Takeda. “And some people think it is trying to catch something, like a fishnet. Completely different. But I like that it can be both.”
“I will never forget seeing my great-grandfather’s photograph in his immigration case file,” Marisa Louie Lee recalls. “The moment I opened the folder and saw the spitting image of my grandfather in front of me, I knew it was him. I cried in the research room!”
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