Mixed Media on Canvas: Acrylic, Graphite, Barbed Wire, Origami Paper, 18k Gold Leaf

In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 and over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry and many of them American citizens were sent away to American Concentration Camps because they were considered a “threat”. Innocent children were also strongly affected. Although the Declaration of Independence states, “All Men Are Created Equal”, it did not ring true during that era for these innocent Americans of Japanese descent.
My grandfather and family was imprisoned at Gila River in Arizona and then transferred to Tule Lake.

The Golden Crane 2019, Grandpa Fred Kakichi Fujii, tending to the gardens while incarcerated in the hot dessert of Arizona. I felt the devastation and pain on my grandfather’s face as I worked on my captivity piece. The somber downward gaze of loss and loneliness without his wife and children, as he tended to the crops. In his hand, he sows the seeds of hope as the golden crane swoops in to soothe his spirit, symbolizing hope, peace, compassion, and healing.

Fujii-Oka was born in Berkeley California and is a Fine Arts graduate of UC-Berkeley. As a Sansei, (third generation Japanese American), she focuses her art on the incarceration of Japanese people in the United States during WWII. She explores her heritage by honoring her family and revealing the injustice of all people of Japanese descent who were tragically imprisoned. Her interdisciplinary artwork investigates themes of inequality, culture, and identity.