Vol. 79/No. 17      May 11, 2015

Three months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, 120,000 men, women and children were rounded up from the West Coast. They were incarcerated behind barbed wire in 10 concentration camps in remote deserts and swamps. Two-thirds of those held illegally without trial were citizens of the United States. Their sole crime was their Japanese ancestry.

These artifacts represent the spirit and determination of a people asserting their humanity in the face of barbed wire and soldiers in guard towers with machine guns. They were given, not sold, to historian Allen Eaton while he was researching what became Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps, published in 1952. Eaton told the incarcerated Japanese Americans he intended to exhibit the art to publicize the injustice of the camps.

Japanese Americans on the West Coast had been given 72-hours notice to dispose of their property; they could pack only what they could carry in two bags per person. They lost their farms and crops, fishing boats, small businesses, homes and personal possessions. Released after the war, many found their livelihoods gone and their lives shattered.

After Eaton and his wife died, the collection ended up in the hands of John Ryan, whose father had done contracting work for Eaton. In the midst of the fight against the auction, Ryan revealed his identity, saying he needed the money “because a family member in financial difficulty needed help,” the New York Times reported April 17.

“It is a betrayal of those imprisoned people who thought their gifts would be used to educate, not be sold to the highest bidder in a national auction, pitting families against museums against private collectors,” Satsuki Ina wrote in the online petition against the auction,

Rago Art and Ryan were intransigent: the auction would take place as scheduled.

The auction touched a raw nerve in the Japanese American community. Thousands of Japanese Americans and their supporters posted their opposition to the auction on social media. The online petition garnered 7,500 signatures in five days.

“We are outraged by someone profiting off of our suffering,” Nancy Ukai Russell, an initial organizer of the protests, told the Militant. “This sale is commodifying a people’s history.”

The impact of the protests against the auction was reinforced by widespread coverage in the Times, an Associated Press release that circulated widely and in other media.

At least three chapters of the Japanese American Citizens League planned to come to New Jersey to demonstrate outside the auction, along with a number of church groups. Several taiko drum groups volunteered to play. A New Jersey Islamic group asked to participate.

The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, which runs a center at the site of one of the concentration camps, made an offer of $50,000 to buy and display the entire collection, almost double Rago’s estimate of the collection’s worth. The offer was refused.

After the cancellation of the auction, Ryan brushed aside the wishes of the Japanese American protesters. He announced that he and his family would try to find a home of their choosing for the collection.

“These irreplaceable works represent the struggles and indomitable spirit of our community against a great injustice,” George Takai, known for his portrayal of Sulu on Star Trek, wrote on Facebook. The protesters had enlisted his help to try and mediate the dispute. “They are shining symbols from a dark time — a chapter that we must never repeat, and never forget. Now, we can ensure that these pieces are not lost to history.”  

 
 
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