Nancy Chikaraishi

Life Interrupted-Art for Social Change

Seventy-Five years after FDR’s Executive Order 9066 put 110,000 people of Japanese Ancestry into Internment Camps, where are we today on issues of racial prejudice, discrimination, immigration, civil rights violations and xenophobia?

Life Interrupted: Art for Social Change was a series of art and cultural events exploring the Japanese-American Internment Camps of World War II in February 2017. The events included a roundtable discussion with local multicultural leaders, First Friday Art Walk installation with Drury student collaboration, a dance workshop and story circle, and a professional dance performance by the renowned CORE Performance Company of Houston and Atlanta.

These richly-layered events draw from Nancy’s own history, whose parents and grandparents were interned in Rohwer, Arkansas. While rooted in this story, the work seeks to convey a universality of experience with deep resonance for contemporary issues such as postwar emigration and the xenophobia that erupts in response. Seventy-five years after Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Internment Camps, “Life Interrupted” asks how issues of civil rights violations, racial profiling, discrimination and immigration have shifted, changed, or remained constant.

How do we ensure the safety of our country without discriminating against ethnicity, religion or gender? What are some solutions to change behaviors, values, and actions for a safer, more tolerant and peaceful world?

Photos by Nancy Chikaraishi unless otherwise noted.

Life in Limbo 9' x 40' x 9'

The suspended rock sculpture represents the chaos, confusion and uncertainty in the suspended lives of the internees imprisoned in the camps. Where were they going? What would life be like? What will the future bring? Today, aliens seeking asylum, children in detention centers and those with DACA status are also in this state of limbo. photo by Aaron Scott

Life in Limbo 9' x 40' x 9'

photo by Aaron Scott

Life in Limbo 9' x 40' x 9'

First Friday Artwalk

DRURY on C-Street Gallery, February 3, 2017, Springfield, MO, photo by Aaron Scott

Drury on C-Street, Springfield, MO, photo by Aaron Scott

Drury on C-Street Gallery

Timeline, graphic design by Casey Dye

Kiyo Chino, Ben Chikaraishi, my mother and father who met in camp, Timeline, graphic design by Casey Dye

Timeline, graphic design by Casey Dye

Sue Schroeder, CORE Performance Company, director, and Nancy Chikaraishi, photo by Aaron Scott

Life Interrupted: The Internment Camps, 6’ x 16’ x 8’

Life Interrupted: The Internment Camps, 6’ x 16’ x 8’, photo by Aaron Scott

Fighting Abroad While Imprisoned at Home

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated Japanese American fighting unit that joined forces with the Japanese Americans of Hawaii’s 100th Infantry Battalion. Many of the soldiers who volunteered were interned in the Japanese American Internment Camps. The 442nd RCT became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size of unit and length of service. In less than 2 years of combat, the 14,000 men who served, earned over 18,000 awards including: 9,486 purple hearts, 559 Silver Stars, 4,000 Bronze Stars, 8 Presidential unit citations, 52 Distinguished service Crosses, 15 Battlefield Commissions, 21 Medals of Honor.

Fighting Abroad While Imprisoned at Home, 1’ x 5’ x 1’

The segregated Japanese American 442 Regimental Combat Team is the most decorated U.S. military unit in history for its size and length of service

Brant Hinrichs talking to son, Eads

Life Interrupted: Art for Social Change

Barracks: Past and Future

This enclosed half of the structure recalls the tar paper covered barracks erected at the 10 Japanese American Internment Camps in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Arkansas. People were made to endure harsh winters of -30 degrees in Wyoming with no wall insulation and only a coal burning stove as well as hot desert temperatures of 110 degrees in Arizona. Hanging inside the structure are the US government official list of Internees of Rohwer, Arkansas.

The open half of the structure looks toward the future and invites people to give responses to questions and their hopes for the future. Hanging responses up on the wall creates a constantly evolving exhibit and represents the voices of Springfield, Missouri.

Barracks: Past and Future

The Barracks: Past and Future

Questions about race, identity, discrimination are projected on the wall upon entering the Barracks.

The Barracks: Past and Future

How does your race define your identity?

The Barracks: Past and Future

Do you fear someone who does not look like you or speaks a foreign language?

The Barracks: Past and Future, list of Rohwer Camp inmates

photo by Aaron Scott

My Hope for the Future is...

HD Video, 14:07 Loop
Director: Nancy Chikaraishi
Videographers: Bobby Hearn, Raymond Barnes
Editor: Evan Paschke
Interviewers: Nancy Chikaraishi, Bobby Hearn, Brant Hinrichs, Ramonda Barnes Interviewees: Andrew Kinstra, Daviana, Ely, Vincent, Nicio, Bernie, Kimberly, Emilio, Eads Hinrichs, Ellie Morris, Fenn Hinrichs, Gabriel Parada, Jack Nevins, Joaquin Parada, Kingsley Shields, Landon Morris, Ryan Stubblefield
Thanks to: Boyd Elementary School and Discovery Garden Montessori School

Dance Workshop / Story Circle

Community Participants led by creative director Sue Schroeder and CORE Performance Company of Atlanta and Houston shared stories and created dance movement pieces in small groups in C-Street gallery, photo by Aaron Scott

Dance Workshop / Story Circle, photo by Aaron Scott

photo by Aaron Scott

Round Table Discussion with Local Community Leaders

Led by Dr. Jeff VanDenBerg and Dr. Dan Ponder with representatives from the Islamic Community of Joplin, NAACP, Temple Israel, PROMO and the Springfield City Council