Most of the 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry evacuted during WWII were children and young adults not yet of voting age. Most were citizens by birth.

This particular painting inspires me in my work because while painting it during a class, an older Caucasian woman also in the class said to me that it was really unfortunate what happened during the war, but that the Japanese Americans were put into the camps for their own protection...even 50 years later in Southern California, to think that people still believed that...

I am an American, acrylic on canvas, 1994
Vicky K. Murakami-Tsuda