These small symbols of flight expressed hope and resistance amid the race-based abridgement of civil liberties during World War II.
These small symbols of flight expressed hope and resistance amid the race-based abridgement of civil liberties during World War II.
1st floor, Nancy Newcomb New Acquisitions Niche
Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the incarceration of people of Japanese descent on the west coast. More than two-thirds of the approximately 125,000 individuals incarcerated were US citizens.
Among them were Yoneguma and Kiyoka Takahashi, who learned bird woodcarving during their 3 1/2-year imprisonment in the Poston III Relocation Center in Arizona. After sourcing imagery from books, they fashioned birds from lumber scraps left over from the camp barracks’ hasty construction, unraveled window screen wire, twigs from the desert landscape, and watercolors. The Takahashis built their art into a successful business following their release from Poston.
Shown alongside their source images by Audubon—an immigrant who, through his Birds of America project, forged an identity as a quintessential American frontiersman—these brooches open thorny questions about “Americanness” and the equal rights of citizenship. Curated by Wendy Nālani E. Ikemoto, vice president & chief curator
Exhibitions at The New York Historical are made possible by the Saunders Trust for American History, the Evelyn & Seymour Neuman Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WNET is the media sponsor.
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