Tokyo, Japan
CNN
—
In an ink illustration, two siblings clutch their worldly possessions — a few bags and suitcases bearing the label “13660.” The same digits are pinned to their clothing, denoting the number their family was assigned at the detention camp they are about to enter.
Elsewhere, a watercolor painting shows rows of army-style barracks in the dead of winter, detainees trudging between them through the snow.
These are just two of almost 20 works by Japanese American artists incarcerated in the United States during World War II displayed in Tokyo earlier this month. As well as shining a rare light on prisoners’ experiences, the exhibition — and its location, at the official residence of US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel — was symbolic of growing calls to better acknowledge a controversial chapter in American history.
The detention of Japanese Americans, most of whom were US citizens, was enacted by Franklin Roosevelt via executive order following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was the largest single forced relocation in US history, with around 120,000 people of Japanese descent incarcerated around the country.
While the US government formally apologized in 1988, granting $20,000 in reparations to each surviving prisoner, the trauma of that time shaped generations of Japanese and Asian Americans.
For Robert T. Fujioka, vice chair of California’s Japanese American National Museum (JANM), which lent all of works in the exhibition, highlighting this history is more important than ever as racism and xenophobia toward people of Asian descent continue to surge in the wake of Covid-19.
“This whole racist situation has never been as bad, I think, since (World War II),” he told CNN at the exhibition reception.
“If we don’t…
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