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From Bento to Mixed Plate: Americans of Japanese Ancestry in Multicultural Hawaii
From Bento to Mixed Plate: Americans of Japanese Ancestry in Multicultural Hawaii is an exhibition hosted by the Smithsonian Asia Pacific America Program at the Japanese American National Museum’s exhibition that captures the evolution of Japanese American identity in multicultural Hawaii as seen through the eyes of the first generation to the present.
From Bento to Mixed Plate panned out to be a huge success attracting over 300,000 visitors. Over 150 volunteers served as gallery guides.
At the start of the From Bento to Mixed Plate, visitors experience open rooms typifying a garage and a living room belonging to a Japanese-American family in Hawaii. The rooms have telling Hawaii touches: a surfboard propped against a wall, for example, and sandals placed neatly in the doorway.
Visitors to this exhibition sees how Japanese first journeyed to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields, became an integral part of Hawaii's multiethnic culture and firmly establishing themselves as community leaders in Hawaii through photographs, videotapes and displays.
From Bento to Mixed Plate traces the rigors of Japanese Americans' working in the cane fields, their love of baseball, their unique experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II and their postwar political successes.
The exhibition here includes something not found elsewhere: a steam engine, the "Olomana," actually used on an Oahu sugar plantation a century ago. The engine was donated to the Smithsonian years ago.
From Bento to Mixed Plate takes us through the World War II section which includes a wall devoted to the exploits of the decorated Japanese-American soldiers and another devoted to the Japanese Americans rounded up and sent to live in mainland camps. The latter includes a display case filled with the wooden carvings, some decorated with Hawaiian flowers, done by Ryosen Yonahara, principal of a Japanese language school on Maui who was interned in New Mexico.
This exhibition ends with a videotape of short takes put together by a diverse group of Hawaii students and a photograph of Ellison S. Onizuka, the Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, surrounded by an equally diverse group of students. The exhibition, which ran from May 23 to November 30, 1999, was presented at Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building. For more information, visit: www.apa.si.edu
Disclaimer: This is not an official blog of the Smithsonian Group nor I am associated with them.
From Bento to Mixed Plate panned out to be a huge success attracting over 300,000 visitors. Over 150 volunteers served as gallery guides.
At the start of the From Bento to Mixed Plate, visitors experience open rooms typifying a garage and a living room belonging to a Japanese-American family in Hawaii. The rooms have telling Hawaii touches: a surfboard propped against a wall, for example, and sandals placed neatly in the doorway.
Visitors to this exhibition sees how Japanese first journeyed to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields, became an integral part of Hawaii's multiethnic culture and firmly establishing themselves as community leaders in Hawaii through photographs, videotapes and displays.
From Bento to Mixed Plate traces the rigors of Japanese Americans' working in the cane fields, their love of baseball, their unique experiences of Japanese Americans during World War II and their postwar political successes.
The exhibition here includes something not found elsewhere: a steam engine, the "Olomana," actually used on an Oahu sugar plantation a century ago. The engine was donated to the Smithsonian years ago.
From Bento to Mixed Plate takes us through the World War II section which includes a wall devoted to the exploits of the decorated Japanese-American soldiers and another devoted to the Japanese Americans rounded up and sent to live in mainland camps. The latter includes a display case filled with the wooden carvings, some decorated with Hawaiian flowers, done by Ryosen Yonahara, principal of a Japanese language school on Maui who was interned in New Mexico.
This exhibition ends with a videotape of short takes put together by a diverse group of Hawaii students and a photograph of Ellison S. Onizuka, the Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, surrounded by an equally diverse group of students. The exhibition, which ran from May 23 to November 30, 1999, was presented at Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building. For more information, visit: www.apa.si.edu
Disclaimer: This is not an official blog of the Smithsonian Group nor I am associated with them.
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