What was the inspiration for the Cages & Enclosures Series?
It had always been in the back of my mind to do a piece about my parents’ experience of being relocated to Concentration Camps during World War II. As American citizens of Japanese ancestry my parents were forced from their homes in Livingston, CA (Dad) and Fresno, CA (Mom) and ordered by the United States government to Concentration Camps away from the West Coast. (Dad to Granada, CO and Mom to Jerome, AR) The tricky part about doing a piece like this was how to approach it. This was not my experience and I wanted to come about it in an honest way. My answer came when I was visiting my folks over the holidays in 1995. They were talking casually about their camp experiences to my husband Jonathan when it hit me – “Oh my God! These people are truly NOT bitter about their experience!” I had always been trying to mine some sort of anger or resentment from them and it was just not there. So my “internment” piece became a piece about overcoming adversity – how one deals with the “cards they
