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A conversation with a farmer in Kansas

And there was this farmer standing next to me. And I still remember him. And he was wearing these blue coveralls and he kept nudging closer to me. And finally, during a break in the auction, he said, Excuse me, sir, he said, I was overhearing you speak the language, and I was wondering how you come to speaking it so good. Where are you from? And I said, I'm from Seattle. And he says, No, he says, Where are your parents from? And I said, Well, my mother was born in Idaho, and my father was born in Seattle. And I knew what he was after, but I had just decided, since these were questions that I'd probably answered half-a-dozen times prior to this conversation, that I would only answer him truthfully, and give him what he asked. And he said, Well, what's your ancestry? or something like that. I says, Well, I'm Japanese, Japanese American. And he says, Well, konnichi wa (hello). And I kind of looked at him, and he said, The little lady and I lived in Japan. And he said, We used to buy them pictures of 'gishi' girls wearin' them kimonos. And he says, Do you do pictures like that? And I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and just sort of said, Yeah. And my friend that was with me was just laughing hysterically. And I just wanted to get away from this guy.


racism stereotypes

Date: March 18 & 20, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito and Mayumi Tsutakawa

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints, and theater pieces address sociopolitical issues of Asian America. Many of his works are inspired by the diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother for fifty-six years. Shimomura has had more than 100 solo exhibitions of his paintings and prints, and has presented his experimental theater pieces at such venues as the Franklin Furnace, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Widely honored as an educator, he was designated a University Distinguished Professor by the University of Kansas. In 2001 the College Art Association presented him with the Artist Award for Most Distinguished Body of Work in recognition of his four-year, twelve-museum national tour of the painting exhibition An American Diary. He retired from teaching in 2004.

Shimomura's personal papers are being collected by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. He is represented by galleries in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Miami, and Seattle.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

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James Hirabayashi

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James Hirabayashi
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Californians didn't know about evacuation

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Camp as a positive thing

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Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

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Wally Kaname Yonamine
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Wally Kaname Yonamine

His parents' experience with Japanese resistance toward intermarriage with Okinawans

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Peggie Nishimura Bain

Response to loyalty questionnaire

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Peggie Nishimura Bain

Difficulties finding apartment in Chicago after leaving Minidoka

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

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