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Transcription: [00:00:03]
JASMINE FERNANDEZ
This is Jasmine Fernandez at the National Portrait Gallery with Roger Shimomura and I'm going to ask you to describe your philosophy on art first.

[00:00:11]
ROGER SHIMOMURA
Ok, um, having heard that question I kind of threw it out because I don't have a philosophy associated with what I do and I think for good reason because, um , if philosophies come too early in life, I think you tend to stay married to it and there's no real flexibility and as you go through life you just start learning more and you start making adjustments.

[00:00:44]
So I probably had some goals, you know that might be called philosophies so I never really thought of it that way and they, um and they probably change almost on a daily basis, you know depending upon how I feel and um, and what I've actually experience or achieved. So, I really don't see much purpose to having a philosophy either because I think that, perhaps, no one really is in the proper condition to have a philosophy until they are towards the end of their life, which I am probably approaching.

[00:01:35]
And then you don't need it at that point, so therefore, what's your next question?

[00:01:43]
JASMINE FERNANDEZ
Next question would be: What does Asian American mean to you?

[[00:01:49]]
ROGER SHIMOMURA
Um, it means a lot of things, it's right at the core of everything that I do in my work. Just the small issue of having a hyphen between Asian and American, y'know I think about that and I could think of five to ten paintings or a whole series of paintings that I could do that might encourage getting rid of that hyphen.

[00:02:18]
And uh you could even do work based on why that hyphen was an achievement at one point. And so, a lot of the work that I have been doing more recently has to do with this near denial of the Asian part of that word and saying - proclaiming - that I'm an American first that happens to be Asian.

[00:02:49]
But a lot of times, we do that and we emphasize things, or over emphasize them, just to try to get a point across, not that I would ever try to deny my Asian-ness for all the positive reasons that have been expressed by all kinds of people that are Asian, or any other ethnic group for that matter, but I can't see any constructive purpose to get rid of all that.

[00:03:30]
Um but for political reasons, one might downplay that for a while, but um it is, it is everything - the perception that I have, or the perception that other people have towards me, of sometimes purely being Asian only creates problems and issues. Obvious limitations placed upon that word - being Asian - and immediately after that comes the stereotype that you're only capable of what the stereotypical Asian is capable of y'know achieving or performing.

[00:04:17]
So y'know these are all issues that I've dealt with in my work and uh even the uh incarceration during World War Two of Japanese Americans uh relates to that issue as well. That when Pearl Harbor was attacked those of us who thought we were Americans of Japanese descent became the Japanese enemy, there was no distinction made. So once again that word became very powerful, y'know the distinction between Asian and Asian-American.

[00:05:03]
Um, y'know initially this exhibition was titled "Asians", I believe, "in America: Purchase of Encounter" and I raised protest to that and said y'know when you say Asians in America um think of it in terms of "Italians in America", "Germans in America", "Mexicans in America"; sounds like foreigners to me.

[00:05:28]
{SPEAKER name="Jasmine Fernandez"}
Yes.

[00:05:29]
{SPEAKER name="Roger Shimomura"}
Y'know so when you say "Asians in America" y'know it excludes uh the American-ness. Fortunately they agreed with me and uh changed the title or else I wouldn't have been in the show today. So