Interviews

1. Getting measles at the camp

2. His sister’s reaction to the camp

3. His mother’s money belt

4. Differences between Parents

5. His father’s American Dream

6. Allyship after camp

7. Coming back from camp

8. Being an outsider

9. Running Japanese store

10. Starting out in Art

11. About Orange Crate Label

12. His mother’s experience of the camp

13. “I did what I wanted to do”

Sakoguchi,Ben

(b. 1938) Japanese American painter & printmaker

Getting measles at the camp

I don’t remember um, going to camp, I remember coming back from camp and that I remember vividly and I can remember the images of camp, you know the mess hall and then the barracks and stuff like this.

But he told me a story that I never knew. And that was that when I left, I got the measles with me kid sister and so we were left behind in a hospital—in a community hospital in San Bernardino and he said that he came to visit me and that was the worst moment in his whole life, was to see his son… and he said I was strapped down and I didn’t want to be left behind and I was screaming you know, so he said he had to leave me there.

So we – we have… I—I wrote to the archives and I got a lot of information back, and one is a letter from a nurse who wrote my folks in camp saying, Benji- is what they used to call me, I’m second son so they said ‘Benji’s doing fine. You know, he’s playing with his toys and all that.’

And then he said that they delivered us, uh my sister and I to camp with the WAC—an army nurse who delivered us there. So, it was a hard time for him, yeah.

California imprisonment incarceration measles San Bernardino United States virus diseases

Date: September 8, 2011

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki, Kris Kuramitsu

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Ben Sakoguchi, born in 1938, is a painter and printmaker who has lived in the Los Angeles area his entire life, except for the time when he and his family were incarcerated in Poston Arizona. After studying painting in the 1960s at the University of California, Los Angeles, he developed a distinctive style that is rooted in pairing a narrative painting tradition with a pop culture vocabulary. He is best known for his long running “Orange Crate Label” series, using the classic crate label format to explore diverse subject matter and to combine them in a way that allows for both sharp critique and wry humor. His work is deeply and politically engaged, and he takes a deep delight in the craft and beauty of painting itself. Sakoguchi was a professor at Pasadena City College for nearly 35 years. Visit his website at bensakoguchi.com. (Oct. 2011)