Japanese Internment Sculpture

Due to the attack of Pearl Harbor, over 100,000 Japanese were put into camps around the United States. This happened because of an order given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was pressured after the events at Pearl Harbor. Because of these events, and the internment that these Japanese citizens endured during this time, a sculpture was enacted in their memory. The sculpture is in San Jose Calif., and was sculpted by Ruth Asawa. The Japanese internment memorial is located in front of the Robert Peckham Federal Building in Downtown San Jose.

Ruth Asawa is a famous Japanese sculptor, who grew up in the time period she sculpted. She got her high school education in an internment camp. She later grew up, and wanted to become an art teacher. After that didn’t work out, she went into sculpting, and later creating the Japanese internment memorial in San Jose.

San Jose was one location in which many Japanese were forced to move to and live during 1942-1945. San Jose State was actually a location for many Japanese to check in before heading to the camps. The Japanese internment memorial pays homage to the Japanese and their suffering during this horrendous period of American history. The sculpture has a few vignettes, and also murals of daily life in the camps, and the journeys that many Japanese had to face during this period of time. The depictions are well sculpted, and the stories are a way for the viewer to go through the long road for the Japanese in the internment camps.

One vignette described the orders sent to the Japanese people, and the list contained rules on what they could and couldn’t bring with them to the camps. The list was very basic, containing clothing and bedding, but the formal way the list looked was very scary. The way these people must have felt is awful, hopelessness and fear of not abiding by these rules. It is impossible for me to image how it must have felt to receive one of these notices, especially the parents of children. They must have known the severity of the situation, but had to save face for their children.

There was a barbwire fence sculpted into the top of some of the sculpture, and an airplane soaring above it. The barbwire must have been a symbol for the containment both physically, and mentally, since many, if not most of the Japanese must have felt hopeless at this time. The airplane was a sense of hope, even though the conditions were tough, the Japanese would carry on, and eventually succeed in America.

There was also a picture of a ship that was next to a dock on the left side of the sculpture. This must have been how the Japanese were taken to the island where they would live for the next few years. Working in the fields, living in tight quarters, a sad daily life for many Japanese in America during this time. These may not have been extermination camps like in Europe, but the camps in the United States were shameful, and awful situations for the Japanese