At Monterey Museum of Art, great reckonings are happening in rooms filled with bold images. The exhibition "Pictures of Belonging" features work by three Japanese-American women artists whose careers were impacted by Japanese internment during World War II. Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi and Mine Okubo all flourished despite hardships. Finally, they're getting due recognition for their talent and resilience.
"So these were hip young women who had a life ahead of them, and they were living in that mid-century period, which is such an important part of California's history," said Corey Madden, the director of the Monterey Museum of Art. "California really came alive, in a sense, at the war and beyond. It's a moment when the country really changed."
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For museum visitor Rick Murai, whose grandparents immigrated from Japan, the paintings invoked memories of his father's response to Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal and internment of Japanese Americans 84 years ago.
"My father said that when the executive order passed, they had 72 hours to gather their belongings," said Murai. "He had three kids, and he said it was the most difficult thing he ever encountered his entire life."
![KAZU's Lisa Ledin [l], Arti Historian Jane Dini, and Museum director Corey Madden strike a pose in front of the "Pictures of Belonging" exhibit.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0cf2d32/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4272x3778+0+0/resize/840x742!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F60%2Fbe%2Fef4d1c594a82bed710a7c7b5d364%2Fimg-0122.jpeg)
"Pictures of Belonging" is complemented by another exhibition about a courageous local reaction to the internments, called “Artistic Alliance in Monterey." Citizens signed a petition demanding that returning Japanese Americans be treated fairly.
Art historian Jane Dini, who curated the "Artistic Alliance" exhibition, explained how brilliance emerged from dark places during this period.
"It was a time when artists, some turned away from the ills of society and some dug in deep," Dini said.
Dini described one notable woman, Toni Jackson, who authored a petition in 1945 at the end of the war, demanding that returning Japanese Americans be treated fairly. She was a writer in the circle of Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck.
"And it was she who spearheaded this petition and gathered over 430 signatories in support of the Japanese Americans returning home to the Monterey Peninsula," Dini said. "The petition attracted signatures from some of the regions most prominent cultural figures, including marine biologist Ed Ricketts, the photographer Edward Weston, artists Barbara and Elwood Graham, and Big Sur poet Robinson Jeffers and his wife Una."
Also unique, said Corey Madden, the museum director, was the sense that Japanese-Americans were strongly integrated in the local community.
"The neighborliness of Monterey and then also the creative community's kind of progressivism are both things that we could look at as being important back then," Madden said. "I think that's one of the things that our museum is really focused on is the way that a museum can act as a kind of community builder."
Both exhibitions, "Pictures of Belonging " and "Artistic Alliance in Monterey," run through April 19 at the Monterey Museum of Art. The Monterey Museum of Art is one of KAZU's many financial underwriters. Underwriters do not influence KAZU's editorial decisions or reporting.
