#setsuko winchester

[nativenewyorkerposts]

“In February 1942, amid the fear and rage that followed Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized military leaders to remove people of Japanese heritage, including American citizens, from their homes on the West Coast...” (Franklin Delano Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park website)  At the park, on Roosevelt Island, 120 yellow tea bowls were on display.  Each represents 1000 individuals who were detained during World War II.  “The injustice of it all haunted me.  They had declared me guilty without giving me a chance to prove I had been a loyal and patriotic citizen...” (Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, “Looking Like The Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps”)  (Photo taken on April 14, 2019)

[riverofmolecules]

While at Tule Lake, a park ranger told [Setsuko] Winchester that the site has been getting more visitors interested in the incarceration because the presumptive presidential nominee Trump had said it might be a good idea to bring back incarceration camps for Muslim Americans. These visitors weren’t interested in learning from mistakes in our history, but wanted to find out how internment “worked.”

Louis Chan, ’Donald Trump Influencing Attitudes about Incarceration of Japanese Americans’

[wnyc]

Japanese-American Setsuko Winchester explores the history of internment camps in her art. She has created 120 hand-made ceramic tea bowls, all glazed in varying shades of yellow — one for every thousand Japanese-Americans held during World War II. 

Setsuko recently sat down with John Hockenberry to share her story.