Kathy Fujii-Oka’s “The Legacy of Fujii Nursery” depicts her grandfather and his brother, owners of the Fujii Nursery in the 1920s in Berkeley, Calif., behind bars in acrylic. In the background of the artwork is a photo of her grandfather and his brother surrounded by military trucks with plants headed to Fort Ord in Monterey, […]
Museum Exhibits
Exhibit promotes ‘accepting’ Queer Nikkei in S.F.’s JA community
May 26, 2022 by Leave a Comment
In December 2021, Elena Nielsen, a Japanese American Citizens League San Francisco chapter board member and Japantown Rainbow Coalition member, approached Tomo Hirai to help solicit support for the JACL’s LGBTQ Pride flag raising project. It will celebrate Pride next month in San Francisco Japantown’s Peace Plaza. In asking for support from the National Japanese […]
An Issei artists reunion at the de Young Museum
November 11, 2021 by Leave a Comment
One hundred years ago, three Japanese artists ? Matsusaburo Hibi (1886-1947), Chiura Obata (1885-1975) and Teikichi Hikoyama (1884-1957) ? were living in San Francisco and actively exhibiting in the San Francisco mainstream art world in venues such as the San Francisco Art Association. Today you have the opportunity to see paintings by Hikoyama and Obata […]
Exhibit of Nisei fiber artist Sekimachi’s work weaves inner life and character
June 10, 2021 by Leave a Comment
BERKELEY, Calif. — Internationally acclaimed master weaver and fiber artist Kay Sekimachi loves playing with opposing forces: the soft and the rigid, inside and out. The 94-year-old Nisei is the subject of an exhibition entitled “Kay Sekimachi: Geometries,” currently at the Berkeley Art Museum. “Geometries” includes more than 50 objects that were created on the […]
Sansei artists emerge from ‘Shadows from the Past’
February 4, 2021 by Leave a Comment
Bay Area artist Na Omi Judy Shintani remembers the day several years ago when her Nisei father walked up to a barrack just like the one that once housed him and his family at the Tule Lake, Calif. concentration camp, and in a fit of rage, literally started ripping the wooden boards off the walls […]
New online exhibition highlights LGBTQ Japanese American pioneers
October 22, 2020 by Leave a Comment
A new online historical exhibition hosted by J-Sei aims to shake up the notion of who the Issei were by exploring queer Japanese Americans prior to 1945. Stan Yogi and Amy Sueyoshi, co-curators of the exhibit, discussed their efforts in an exhibit opening hosted via Zoom by J-Sei, a multi-generational Japanese American organization based in […]
On healing the ache of the familiar
December 19, 2019 by Leave a Comment
There is a particular ache that many Japanese Americans feel when we see images of our World War II mass incarceration, or “camp.” It’s a bittersweet struggle with recognition and connection across barriers of time and space. If the faces and settings are not our relatives, the chilling fact remains that they might be, or […]
L.A. museum opens exhibition on Japanese American A-bomb victims
November 21, 2019 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) — An exhibition featuring the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened Nov. 9 in Los Angeles, telling the stories of Japanese Americans who were in those cities when the bombs dropped in August 1945. Marking the 75th anniversary of the tragedies, the Japanese American National Museum will run the event through […]
Exhibit at JANM celebrates emergence of APA consciousness
September 26, 2019 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES — “At First Light: The Dawning of Asian Pacific America,” a multi-media exhibit celebrating the emergence of a politically defined Asian Pacific American consciousness and identity, is now on display through Oct. 20 at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. This co-production of Visual Communications and JANM chronicles the transformation of […]
Henry Sugimoto exhibition on wartime incarceration opens in Yokohama
February 10, 2011 by 1 Comment
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Many Japanese people learn in school that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8, 1941 (Dec. 7 in the United States). But not so many know what happened to Japanese Americans on Feb. 19, 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. They are starting to find out, however, […]
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