Iwao Yamawaki (1898–1987) Architect, Photographer, Bauhaus Pioneer
Uchida Yoshikazu (1885–1972), Architect, Engineer, and Academic Leader
"Yasuo Kuniyoshi's Life and Work in New York"
Kuro Murase
Kuro Murase (1880-1947) was a Japanese American physician who was born in Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan in 1880. He earned a doctorate from Ngoya University Medical Graduate School.
He immigrated to the U.S. sometime around 1911, where he pursued further education in ophthalmology at Bellevue Hospital.
Leo Amino
Japanese American sculptor Leo Amino (1911-1989) was born in Taiwan and educated in Tokyo. He immigrated to the U.S. as a young man in 1929, where he attended San Mateo Junior College before anti-Japanese sentiment moved him to cross the country to New York in 1935.
He is the first American artist to use plastics as a principal material of sculptural composition, and the innovator of cast plastics in American sculpture.
The only Asian American artist to teach on faculty in the history of the Summer Art Sessions at Black Mountain College, he is also one of few artists of Asian descent to gain this level of national exposure in the first half of the 20th century.
Rebuilding Community
Labor Recruitment Poster, “Year Around Work for Men and Women,” 1941-1945. Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center, Rutgers University Libraries Out of loss and exile grew resilience. As the war ended, Japanese Americans in New York faced the daunting task of rebuilding not just their personal lives but their collective community. They established new organizations, forged […]
Education for Young Japanese Americans
The fight for democracy was paralleled by a battle over education. For young Japanese Americans, schooling became both a refuge and a battleground. Families struggled to ensure their children’s futures amid discrimination and disruption. Education emerged as a quiet but powerful form of resistance, laying the groundwork for a new generation determined to forge identities […]
Japanese Americans and Democracy
The injustice at Ellis Island ignited a reckoning with democracy itself. Japanese Americans, even while incarcerated, engaged in fierce debates about loyalty, rights, and citizenship. Issei New Yorkers and the Nisei (second-generation), took it upon themselves to prove that democracy could be claimed, not just promised. Their activism and sacrifices challenged America’s contradictions, pushing the […]
Test Off Canvas Artifact
Takeo Shiota
Takeo Shiota was a Japanese American landscape architect best known for his design of the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the rooftop garden at the Hotel Astor.
