Museum Exhibits Highlights Japanese

American Incarceration During WWII

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum opens Resilience–A Sansei Sense of Legacy on January 17, 2026.

In 1942, in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order 9066. The law ordered the forced imprisonment of all

Japanese Americans living on the west coast of the United States, which had the second largest

population of Japanese people living outside of Japan.

Told from the point of view of Sansei (third generation) Japanese Americans, Resilience- A

Sansei Sense of Legacy is an exhibition of eight artists whose work reflects on the effect of

EO9066 as it resonated from generation to generation. While several of the artists in Resilience

employ traditional Japanese methods in the construction of their work—Lydia Nakashima

Degarrod’s use of boro stitching on her works on paper; Judy Shintani’s kimono cutouts honored

in ceramic vessels—others use iconography relating to Japanese culture as a jumping off point for

personal explorations on the subject of the incarceration camps—Reiko Fuji’s photographs-askimono;

Wendy Maruyama’s columns of replicated camp ID tags. Each in their own way, the

artists in this exhibition express moments of deeply felt pain and reluctant acceptance, emotions

which were often withheld by their elders.

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is proud to partner with the Japanese

American Citizens League to present this powerful exhibition,” says Myron Freedman, Executive

Director. “The artworks reverberate with the enormous injustice suffered by Japanese American

citizens and speak to how generational scars may be borne by families and cultures.”

Exhibition artists are Kristine Aono, Reiki Fuji, Wendy Maruyama, Lydia Nakashima

Degarrod, Tom Nakashima, Roger Shimomura, Judy Shintani, and Jerry Takigawa. The Museum

will also exhibit pieces by Arthur Towata who lived and worked in Alton, IL.

Co-curated by artists Jerry Takigawa and Gail Enns, Resilience was conceived to serve as a

catalyst to cultivate social dialogue and change around the issues of racism, hysteria, and

economic exploitation.

The eight artists featured in Resilience were selected because of their

personal connection to the subject matter, their work is well respected within the Japanese

American community as well as within the art world.

Takigawa and Enns explain, “The Sansei generation is perhaps the last generation of Japanese

American artists that can be directly connected to the WWII American concentration camp

experience—making their expression particularly significant in clarity of emotion. These artists

lived through the years of “gaman” or silence about the camps. That silence made a deep

impression on the artists selected for Resilience.

The exhibition opened Saturday, January 17  Opening day activities

included demonstrations of ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), origami, and a traditional

Japanese tea ceremony. Tickets are available beginning December 15, 2025. Admission is free to

the Resilience exhibition, but tickets are required.

The exhibition will run from January 17-April 4, 2026. More information on the exhibition

can be found at: stlholocaustmuseum.org/resilience-2.

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is dedicated to using the history and lessons

of the Holocaust to reject hatred, promote understanding, and inspire change. The Museum is

open Wednesday-Monday, 10 am to 4:30 pm. Tickets, memberships, and group tour reservations

are currently available. The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum is a proud partner of

the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. The Federation founded the Museum in 1995 and nurtured

and maintained it for 25 years. Learn more at www.StlHolocaustMuseum.org

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