Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/388/

Collection of artifacts depicting racial stereotypes influences art

And then I have World War II postcards that depict the World War II Jap with the buck teeth and slanted eyes, yellow-skinned and their endless depiction of -- and I almost have all of 'em now. I must have about thirty or forty of 'em. And other ones that are just really foul, dogs urinating on Jap heads and things, defecating on them, and they're all these different versions. I have magazine advertisements of those same kinds of depictions, Jap hunting licenses that companies gave away, you put stamps on 'em and how many Japs you've killed. I have Slap a Jap cards that were clubs that you would join and every time you were supposed to slap the Jap that you saw. Patriotics, which were envelopes that you use with images on there that were the stereotypes of, of Japanese people, so just about anything that had to do with depictions, negative depictions of Japanese people.

And, of course, all of these things end up informing my paintings, so I've been working on a series called Stereotypes & Admonitions where I depict myself, sometimes as a samurai from a ukiyo-e woodblock print, because that refers to how people see me as the person from Japan, or as that World War II yellow peril threat, which is still that kind of eternal foreigner, but more of a threat. And so what I'll do is I'll put myself under one of those two disguises within a Western framework, so it also refers to that idea of, when you tell a white person that not a day goes by where you don't realize that you're not white, they don't understand what you mean. And that's what this refers to because it's so dramatized with these horrible depictions.


discrimination interpersonal relations racism stereotypes

Date: March 18 & 20, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito and Mayumi Tsutakawa

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints, and theater pieces address sociopolitical issues of Asian America. Many of his works are inspired by the diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother for fifty-six years. Shimomura has had more than 100 solo exhibitions of his paintings and prints, and has presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the Franklin Furnace, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Widely honored as an educator, he was designated a University Distinguished Professor by the University of Kansas. In 2001 the College Art Association presented him with the Artist Award for Most Distinguished Body of Work in recognition of his four-year, twelve-museum national tour of the painting exhibition An American Diary. He retired from teaching in 2004.

Shimomura's personal papers are being collected by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. He is represented by galleries in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Miami, and Seattle.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

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Bain,Peggie Nishimura

Response to loyalty questionnaire

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Kosaki,Richard

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Kosaki,Richard

Change in attitudes after World War II

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Yamasaki,Frank

Encountering racial discrimination at a public swimming pool

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Yamasaki,Frank

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Kanemoto,Marion Tsutakawa

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Sasaki,Fred

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Sasaki,Fred

Anti-Japanese sentiment at the time of World War II

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Naito,Sam

Undergraduate studies interrupted following Pearl Harbor

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Naito,Sam

Difficulty getting work during World War II

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Terasaki,Paul

His experiences in Chicago after WWII

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Inahara,Toshio

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