|
|
|
Exhibition Reviews
"Japanese American Experience in Merced County." Merced County Courthouse Museum, 21st and N Sts., Merced, CA 95340.
Temporary exhibition, April 3–Sept. 28, 2003. 551 sq. ft. Marlene Tanioka, exhibition committee chairperson; Eric Andow, Mary Andow, Grace Kimoto, Fran Kirihara, Jake Kirihara, Patti Kishi, Sherman Kishi, Dan Kubo, Yuri Maeda, Caroline Nakashima, Tom Nakashima, Robert Ohki, Jean Okuye, Marilyn Sano Holman, Emiko Tanioka, Naomi Yamamoto, Peter Yamamoto, committee members; Sarah Lim, museum curator; Herb Wood and Zoe Bishop, part-time assistants.
Internet: photographs
and brief text <http://www.mercedmuseum.org/exhibits/current/index.htm>
(Aug. 19, 2003).
|
| This exhibition can be summed up in one word: endurance. The displays illustrate ninety-nine years of Japanese American endurance in Merced County, California, despite discrimination, legal challenges, World War II incarceration, and conflicts upon postwar return. Exhibition committee members, too, have overlooked twenty years of neglect since the first brief Japanese American display at this venue closed down without plans for a more permanent presence in an avowedly community-conscious museum. The current exhibit will endure, in some form, beyond its scheduled six-month run at the old courthouse, twice as long as usual for a temporary exhibition. Local schools, the Merced County Library, and the offices of the University of California, Merced, have all requested traveling spin-offs. |
1
|
|
What does the exhibit offer? It is largely visual, dependent on photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, and large blocks of text to relate the story of three Japanese farming colonies, two Christian and one Buddhist, over nearly a century. Four chronological and thematic topics are covered in two rooms. The first room is filled with evidence of "Settling Down, 1904–42," emphasizing "Issei Pioneers," "Working in the Fields," and "Building Communities." The second room houses the other three periods: "Merced Assembly Center, May–Sept. 1942," "Amache Internment Camp, 1942–45," and "Moving Back to Merced, 1946–Present," including a special display of "Community Leaders." A few historical artifacts rest in a handful of cases and on the walls, and Japanese American cultural items such as cloth flags in the shape of koi (traditional goldfish) and origami cranes add to the atmosphere. Most of this can be seen on the Web site, although to read the text and examine the photographs closely, one has to be there. And that is what most exhibition visitors want to do—search the photos for faces of relatives and friends, read Gen. John L. DeWitt's Civilian Exclusion Order 51 that forced Japanese Americans from their homes with only two weeks' notice, examine the medals worn by a World War II veteran, or admire the photo of Pat Suzuki, a Broadway actress and a native of the Merced County town of Cressey. Text is largely narrative, not interpretive, leaving the reader to ponder what direct effects the series of anti-Japanese laws had (although the Immigration Act of 1924 is missing), or who gained the six thousand acres and one thousand hogs the Koda family lost during World War II, or what it felt like to sit on a temporary assembly center's toilet: "a long wooden plank with four to six holes cut out for many people to use at one time." The exhibit also manages a tactful balance between evidence of racial discrimination and examples of positive community interaction, although one must know something of the divisions within the local Japanese American community—including diverse religions, wartime reactions, and social classes—to appreciate the synthesis the exhibition committee has achieved. |
2
|
There are about 508 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
|
