Jerry Takigawa’s work Balancing Cultures was chosen as a 2024 Rfotofolio Work of Merit by juror Diana Bloomfield.
“I found this intergenerational narrative incredibly powerful. An intensely personal body of work, the core message remains universal and still resonates over 80 years later, serving as both a reminder and a warning. The grace, dignity, and the closeness of this Japanese-American family, their soft monochromatic images gently placed in the background, shine brightly through the artifacts and harsh words literally placed upon them in these photographs. This is at once heartbreaking and hauntingly beautiful work— a relevant testimony to how the past always informs the present, and the future. I also very much appreciated the insightful and heartfelt artist statement that accompanied this work.” Diana Bloomfield
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Balancing Cultures
“In 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 caused the unjust incarceration of 125,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, mostly American citizens and legal residents. In 1980, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Citizens concluded the causes that shaped this decision were race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership. Following my mother’s passing, I found a cache of photographs taken of my parents in an WW II Arkansas concentration camp. All the camp stories I heard while growing up became real through photographic evidence. My parents never disclosed the camps in a political or sociological context presumably for my benefit. The Japanese concept for this kind of self-restraint is gaman, a Zen Buddhist term meaning “to endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity.”
I was compelled to tell their story and imagined how my parents must have felt as victims of racism, exploitation and injustice. I felt defensive of their feelings, and I wondered, if they were still alive, would they be upset by what I wanted to reveal in this project. Still, Balancing Cultures is a story typical of all Japanese American families—removed from their homes, branded as the enemy, and imprisoned without due process. Their hidden wartime emotions were silently transmitted to their children as intergenerational trauma and are still being processed today.” Jerry Takigawa
Thank you Jerry. To earn more about the work of Jerry Takigawa please click in his name.
Immensley moving work.
Very powerful and significant photo-testimony! Thanks for sharing that body of work and the informations!
To suffer without commiting a crime, keep no resentment in a tragic situation and even loving one’s enemy is true heroism!