Fighting Stereotypes with Art

For Japanese-American artist Roger Shimomura, a seismic shift in his art came, strangely enough, following a surreal chat with a farmer at a Kansas auction. Shimomura, who spent 2 years of his childhood behind barbed wire at an internment camp in Idaho, tells the story this way:

At the time I was collecting windup toys. I was at an auction looking for items and this farmer kept inching closer to me. Finally, he said, I was listening to you talk and I was wondering how you came to speak the (English) language so well? Where are you from? Seattle, I replied. Well, then where are your parents from? Seattle, I replied. I knew what he was after but I wanted him to have to work for it. Are you Indian, he asked? I said no, I was Japanese-American. Then he drawled, Well Ka-nich-eee-wa. Me and the little lady collect them Gee-she girls with Kimonos. Do you paint that kind of stuff?

Returning to his studio, Shimomura was unable to get the conversation filled with stereotyped thinking out of his mind. The thoughts drove him to create Oriental Masterpiece, originally fifty 5' by 5' paintings in a series containing Oriental items. Before the series was completed, it came to number almost 150 works.

Shimomura Crosses the Delaware

Shimomura, who appeared at the National Portrait Gallery today to discuss his unique works of social commentary, then spent the next 4 decades creating art inspired by his views of the challenges of being different in America.

At the beginning of his 1-hour presentation, held in a small gallery room containing 5 of his works all created within the last 2 years, Shimomura said he really didn't like to discuss the works themselves. "You make work disappear by talking too much about it. It is up to the viewer to fill in the sentences," he said.

American vs. Disney Stereotypes

The artist, who is a professor at the University of Kansas, said that his latest art falls into 3 broad thematic categories.

First, were paintings based on the interment camp years. Although Shimomura did have a few memories of those years, much of his work came from the 56 years of diary entries his grandmother had kept which he had to have translated from the original Japanese.

That was followed by years of work on dealing with "yellow-term stereotypes" especially prevalent during the World War II years. Using Ebay, Shimomura amassed a collection of more than 2,000 such items, many of which found their way into his art. He said he was particularly struck with what at the time were called "Jap hunting licenses." These free cards, distributed at barbershops and other places where young people might congregate, jokingly allowed the bearer to kill any Japanese and further specified the method (gun, knife etc) that was to be used. Shimomura said that even in today's more tolerant America, insidious stereotypes can still make an appearance. During a recent auto crisis, Shimomura said an advertisement in a Kansas periodical depicted a yellow, buck-toothed, slanty-eyed Japanese pilot bombing America with Toyotas and Hondas.

American Born

Finally, Shimomura said some of his work deals with "the whiny sort of issues that I've had about being Asian-American." As an example, Shimomura cited the oft-expressed belief that all Orientals are the same. "I get upset when someone mistakes me for a Chinese. People are always asking - where were you born? I'm an American. I was born here. You put me in a concentration camp. I've been in your damn army. I don't know what else I can do," he said.

Tales,Tidbits, and Tips
Shimomura's 5-piece collection is part of a larger show at the National Portrait Gallery entitled Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter. That exhibition is on view until October 14.