I am a visual artist and writer who lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. I am also Japanese American. In my drawings, paintings, photographs, assemblages and installations, I interrogate what it means to be Asian and American in today’s America. Today is a reflection of the past and a lesson toward the future. In the past, Japanese Americans, including my grandparents and US-born parents, were subjected to the trauma of ethnically based incarceration during World War II. Growing up, it was important to my parents and grandparents and to the US government for me to fit seamlessly into my school, my neighborhood and eventually my marriage and professional life. In the process, the Japanese part of my identity faded though deeply cherished. Through art, I work to reclaim my identity, excavating and rebuilding self while excavating and rebuilding layers of ink on paper drawings. I dig and tear into paper, always in a back-and-forth conversation between that which is random and that which is intentional. These works very often begin with poetry I write.

But my work is not just about me; it is about an urgency for our future. We sit at this critical juncture when we must not look away from systemic racism, and a time when we must move toward true democracy and not away from it. By continuing to raise my voice through my art, I raise the voices of my Asian brothers and sisters in our fight to be seen and treated as Americans who are indeed “created equal.” I do my art to build understandings of the past as present and future. My hope is that these understandings in some small way help us make better choices going forward.