Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 123: The Stakes of Exposure — with Namiko Kunimoto
Speakers: Paige Smith, Am Johal, Namiko Kunimoto
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Paige Smith 0:03
Hello listeners, I’m Paige Smith with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
On this episode of Below the Radar, our host Am Johal is joined by taiko drumming enthusiast, and specialist in modern and contemporary Japanese art, Namiko Kunimoto. Throughout this episode, Namiko explores Japanese imperialism, Olympic dissent, and the internment of Japanese Canadians. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
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Am Johal 0:37
Hello everyone, welcome to Below the Radar. Delighted that you could join us. And we're really excited to have Namiko Kunimoto with us, who's an associate professor of art history at Ohio State University, and also the director of the Center for Ethnic Studies. So welcome Namiko.
Namiko Kunimoto 0:54
Thanks so much for having me Am.
Am Johal 0:57
I wonder if we can begin by you introducing yourself a little bit?
Namiko Kunimoto 1:01
Sure. Well, as you know, I am a BC-original, we both went to UBC together—where I did an Art History and Anthropology BA, and also worked on student politics with you. I did my MA at UBC as well, in history of art, focusing on photography of the Japanese Canadian internment camps. Family photography, which were actually illegal at the time. And now I—after completing my PhD in Berkeley, in history of art, I'm working at Ohio State University, as Associate Professor. I'm in the History of Art Department, but I also wear another hat as the Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies.
Am Johal 1:40
You called yourself a BC original, but you actually are originally from Alberta? No?
Namiko Kunimoto 1:44
Yeah, don't out me in my rural origins, or I'll do the same to you Am. [laughs]
Am Johal 1:51
[laughs] I'm wondering, if we could begin by talking about your book Stakes of Exposure that came out in 2017, with the University of Minnesota Press. I'm wondering if you can sort of talk about where that project began, and what you're trying to do with it.
Namiko Kunimoto 2:08
Sure, and maybe I'll turn our conversation— I think as we go on, we'll be increasingly talking about community engagement, and issues of race, and things like that. And I think one of the things I'd like to talk about today is a little bit about the ways that some disciplines make it more or less possible to work on such issues. So, the Stakes of Exposure was my tenure book, it's looking at a group of artists who were working in the 1950s and 60s, following the end of the American occupation. And so it's really a story that's dealing with the ways American imperialism affected Japan, and how artists resituated themselves politically, following the war. But to some degree, it's really a book that's about Japanese art history, which I think I felt was sort of necessary for the completion of my PhD, and to be able to get a tenure track job afterwards, despite having a strong interest in say, Asian American race issues or something like that. The book still does take up issues of race. For example, it looks at the artist Katsura Yuki, who did a series of illustrations in the Asahi Journal, which was a fairly radical journal for James Baldwin's novel Another Country. And she looks at the ways his sort of political spectrum, and compares it to Japan and in some ways, she kind of pulls back a bit from the race issues, but another way she uses it to maintain her own political subjectivity in the 1960s. The book also deals with issues of environmentalism, like the Minamata disaster. It opens with the mercury poisoning of children in the 1950s. And the ways that Japan's rush for economic increase really took its toll on the most vulnerable in the population. And I look at that through the lens of visual culture. And other chapters look at some members of the Communist Party, and their work on creating art in the 1950s and 60s, called Reportage Art. They were a vigorously anti-American group and sort of pushing back against the American occupation, and supporting student activism. So, with all of those issues, though, overall I think the book is really grounded in the issue of gender, and how gendered bodies manifested in the 1950s and 60s, through the lens of different artists. There are four main artists, as well as some manga or comic book illustrators that are attended to in the end.
Am Johal 4:37
I'm wondering how you first got interested in art history, and how you decided to pursue it?
Namiko Kunimoto 4:43
Well, that's a good question, actually. I was originally an Anthropology Major right up until my fourth year. But my degree was taking a little bit longer. You know, you and I both got so involved in Action Now, which was this student body that took over student politics after they shut down the UBC— the student newspaper. So that started taking up a lot of my time. But near the end of my degree program, I had taken an art history course. And one of the lectures was about the Raft of the Medusa, and really talking about the politics of race in Paris. And suddenly I realized that art could be a way to access politics, that for me seems sort of fundamentally interesting because it was grounded in the visual. In a way that you could really engage with it. So I actually added another major onto my degree at the last minute, and it took me a little bit longer to complete my degree. But right from the beginning, even in anthropology... Actually getting back to this issue of growing up in rural towns— I first lived in Jasper, Alberta. And then from age 7 to 11, I lived in Belmont BC, which at the time was a very small town, on the edge of the Alberta-BC border, with hardly any other Asian people in the town at all. So I think from a really young age, I was made aware of how the visual representation of our face makes people react to us in a certain way, immediately. And sort of assume things about us, or want to know things about us. So I think the interconnection between race, and visual politics was something that actually drew me to anthropology and art history. I probably shouldn't say this out loud, but I'm not one of those people who is just a huge lover of art beyond anything else. I actually think artists are fascinating and interesting— something that I can't really do myself. But I think it's a really interesting way to look at politics and identity. And for most students like myself, it was more grounded in something, kind of, real.
Am Johal 6:41
And in terms of your own family's story, your grandfather was interned during the Second World War.
Namiko Kunimoto 6:48
Yeah, that's right. Both my grandparents actually, my grandmother and my grandfather, were incarcerated during the Japanese Canadian internment. And both of them were Canadian citizens. So you know, I've often had the question, "Where are you from? Where are you from?" repeatedly thrown at me, but actually, the Kunimotos have been here since the late 1800s. And I'm a fourth-generation ... immigrant family. So both my grandparents were interned. And because I spent some of my time growing up—when I later moved to Lethbridge, living with my grandfather, he had a big impact on me. And he didn't actually talk about that experience—hardly at all. Other than to say that he got so mad one day, he went to the courthouse and threatened to tear up his birth certificate, because he was so upset. But other than that, he didn't really talk a lot about those experiences. But as I grew up, I could see how profoundly they had shaped our family's history: our economic history, our political history, our psychological history. And I think I became more interested in that, and researching it was a way for me to sort of learn more about what had happened to our family, as well as to sort of contribute to—at the time, a lack of knowledge about the Japanese Canadian incarceration.
Am Johal 8:04
Namiko, you've also written about the Japanese Olympics, an article on Olympic dissent. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about where that came from and what you were trying to do with that?
Namiko Kunimoto 8:16
Well, I think a lot of work in the field of, say Japanese studies has focused on this idea of Japan. And Japan tries to promote itself as a homogenous place where there's just really one race, despite the fact that there's millions and millions of foreigners working in Japan, and living in Japan. And Olympic dissent sort of talks about some of these desperate communities as well as about pushing back against the 2020 Olympics. So it's looking at a work by Takayama Akira called the Tower of Babylon. And it's a pretty fascinating work, because it's showing some video footage of two individuals who were both involved in the upcoming games. And one of them named Makoto, was a construction worker in the 1964 Olympic Games. And he talks about, you know, the build, the drive for construction and all this kind of stuff. And he's sort of talking about it in a way that looks back fondly on those moments—despite the fact that now he's currently a homeless person, living in Tokyo, and he is going to lose his homeless community because of the 2020 Games. So that community is being pushed away. He talks about, you know, losing his friendships and connections, because of the 2020 Games. So this is kind of a reiterative cycle for Makoto. And next to him is another man who worked for construction in the 1964 games. However, his family were shareholders in construction companies. And now he's the CEO of a construction company that's building for the 2020 Games. And then on the other side of the piece, it's displaying the bodies of four migrant workers from varying different countries, and they're all reading the fable of The Tower of Babylon in their own language. But it's really talking about the ways that the Olympics will, when it comes to Tokyo, and has continued to displace vulnerable people. You know, right from the games of the 1940s that were canceled, through to the 1964 Games, and the controversial 2020 Games. And there was a large movement in Japan called NOlympic, which is obviously pushing back against the idea of the Olympics, and the priorities that the Abe government was demonstrating—through the removal of affordable housing, and through the removal of people, for the presence of tourism and Olympic-building.
Am Johal 10:49
It really resonates with a place like Vancouver, where we had those massive capital flows go through the city, even though the Winter Olympics is much smaller compared to the Summer Olympics. So those ideas really resonate. So you have a new book project now called Transpacific Erasures: Contemporary Art, Gender, Race and the Afterlives of Japanese Imperialism. Can you talk a little bit about this project?
Namiko Kunimoto 11:14
Sure, yeah, this is my second book project. And I'm really just getting started on it. But I am pretty excited about it. I think this book—more than the first one, will be looking more broadly at some of the issues that are close to my heart, you know, such as race. The first chapter is talking about contemporary art, addressing the recent uptick in performance art or paintings, and particularly memorials and statues over 'comfort women.' Which is the euphemistic term used for militarized sexual slavery, that was driven by the Japanese military and affected women from Korea, Taiwan, Japan—although most people don't always realize that Japanese women were also used as comfort women. And other countries, such as the Netherlands, who were in the Dutch Indies at the time. And there was kind of a very horrific and systemic use of women's bodies, by the military, that was also deeply racialized. So for example, officers would be quote-unquote, given white women or Japanese women. Whereas lower-ranking soldiers would have access to Korean women. And Japan went so far to even, sort of, look up the Geneva Conventions, and to their understanding, because they had colonized Korea, they would not face ramifications for this kind of sexualized, militarized violence. And this is something that's come up more recently, in the 1990s, as some lawsuits took place, and some testimonies were finally brought to light about the treatment of these women. And it's become, I suppose, really, the pivotal issue between Korea and Japan's international relations these days. And interestingly, for me, as an art historian, a lot of it is actually turned on a specific statue called a Statue for Peace, which is basically a depiction of a young, quite young Korean comfort woman—the original one sitting opposite the Japanese Embassy in Korea. And Japan has asked for that to be removed, but instead, the statues have replicated. And most recently have been included in an exhibit in Japan, called After Freedom of Expression, which ironically, was censored and shut down. Largely because of the presence of art that contained references to comfort women. The book is actually talking a lot about some other Japanese artists like Shimada Yoshiko, who is a performance artist, talking specifically about comfort women. Her piece is called Becoming a Statue of a Japanese Comfort Woman, and she's performed this in Korea, in California, and in various right-wing centers in Japan. To try and illuminate the fact that, first of all, there were comfort women, as many people in Japan don't realize this, since it's been covered over in textbooks, it's been censored from textbooks, and is generally not talked about in the public. And also to draw attention to the ways that imperialism and colonialism inevitably, you know, feed on their own—on the most vulnerable society, even in Japan. And so I'm trying to highlight the ways her work is not just drawing attention to past atrocities, but to the ways neoliberal Japan is actually in some ways a continuation of its Imperial past.
Am Johal 14:38
Namiko, I'm wondering, when do you expect the book to be coming out?
Namiko Kunimoto 14:43
Oh, not for a while. I'm only a couple of chapters in. So it'll be—things are slow, a few years, I imagine.
Am Johal 14:51
I totally understand. I’m working on one myself right now.
Namiko Kunimoto 14:54
What are you working on?
Am Johal 14:56
I'm working on something around community and friendships. So maybe 2023—late 2023. You're also the director of the Center for Ethnic Studies, and I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about—particularly in the moment in the United States with the kind of forms of populism that were in place during the Trump administration; the kind of race issues that are playing out in the university for the last couple of years; but also kind of in the present context. In terms of how you see things from the vantage point of being a Director of the Center for Ethnic Studies.
Namiko Kunimoto 15:32
Right. Well, the Center for Ethnic Studies, I'll just explain sort of what it is. It's essentially a group—an umbrella group—of Indigenous American Studies, or what they actually call there as American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies. I was the director of that program for three years before, and also Latinx studies. So we have minor programs in those three areas, as well as doing sort of educational programming and community engagement in those areas as well. There is a separate African and African Americans Studies Department at OSU. So these minor programs are working with those programs, as well as the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. But the Center for Ethnic Studies is fairly new. And we're trying to grow it into more of an interdisciplinary center. Right now it's under the Humanities Institute. But increasingly, we're moving towards a more arts and humanities wide de-siloization of the university, for that program. And, you know, since 2016, of course, white supremacy in the United States and in Canada really started to grow. And all of these things I think have faced a lot of pressure. These days, you hear a lot about Black Lives Matter statements coming from different departments and institutions, you see administrators making these kinds of pledges, which is great. But at the same time, on one hand, our university said that they're going to offer larger grants for studies about race. And then on the other hand, they said they were actually going to cut all the faculty compensation for the Center for Ethnic Studies, which would basically mean it would not exist. And one of the problems I have with this kind of upper-level grant funding is it's really offering more privilege to those who are already elite in the university. And if you look at the demographics of universities across North America, and it's certainly the case at OSU, the higher you go up, the more white, upper-middle-class, and male, it becomes. And by the time you come to full professors, there are three times as many men as there are women. I think, four times as many, or worse, in terms of BIPOC representation—no, it's got to be worse than that, actually. But you know, it's just predominantly white and male. So that becomes a big problem. For people to really truly understand what it means to be an underrepresented person in the ivory tower. And oftentimes, administrators have very little experience with poverty, they have very little experience with racism, and often even with sexism. So there can be a lot of tension between what something like the Center for Ethnic Studies wants to do, or even community-engaged scholars may want to do, and what administrators actually want.
Am Johal 18:23
I'm wondering what your reading is, in terms of … You know, where are institutions that are doing interesting things around these issues, or where there might be a way forward in terms of having a more equitable university—something that functions in a more democratic framework, with the advent of audit culture at universities, with the other socio-cultural things in place, and then this structure and tradition of universities, which have a kind of white supremacist orientation that gets amped up in these political moments, as well. What are the sites of possibility inside the institution, as you see it from a place like the Center for Ethnic Studies? Or with colleagues in other parts of The States that you're in conversation with?
Namiko Kunimoto 19:12
Well, I think your work, Am, is really demonstrative of what can happen in university, and I applaud SFU for having you as the Director of Community Engaged Research. I think that's really ahead of where we might be at somewhere like OSU. Currently, OSU just named a Community Engaged Associate Dean. But I think it needs to also come from the bottom up, where we're supporting students of colour, and in different ways then are often typical. So for example, in Asian American Studies, there's often a problem where the university doesn't really even understand the demographics of Asian American studies, where Asian Americans face the greatest income gap in North America these days. So there can be very impoverished Vietnamese-American first-year students, or there can be, you know, new immigrant families who come from much greater wealth. So there needs to be sort of more attention to what diversity means and how they're supporting that. One thing I think our university is doing right is they're supporting first-year students. So students whose families do not have degrees. There's a program called the Buckeyes First, which offers the opportunity for students to meet over the summer, to ask questions, to get acquainted with the university system, and generally has more support in place than, say, I did as a first-generation student coming into the university system. Where I didn't really have anyone telling me how to pick your courses, or anything about university life for that matter. But I think there also needs to be greater change at all the levels. The fact that the administration of most universities is almost always majority white, becomes a problem in this day and age, because it's very difficult for most of those people to truly understand these other positionalities. So that's something that really needs to change as well. I think programs that you and Allison Dunnet put together—like Humanities 101, where you're offering free education for people who are living in poverty, or who otherwise don't have access—are tremendously important. We also have a program in place for people who are incarcerated, so that they might have access to university-level courses. Those kinds of ideas can be really good as well. But you know, like your forthcoming book probably talks about, it's also about making those really close connections with people who aren't involved in the university. Because true activists who are really engaged in community work, often operate through, understandingly, the lens of trust, and it's not really something that just can appear out of thin air, you have to be working together on things, creating things. And people who are in the privilege of working for university need to be listening, and need to be attentive to what's happening outside of campus, or what the history of that campus might be, and what can be done to address those things.
Am Johal 22:10
The pandemic moments really challenged higher education in The States and in Canada, and there’s a lot of questions on the table in terms of what the near future looks like. And I'm wondering, from your vantage point, how the pandemic has sort of amped up the crisis inside the university, broadly speaking, and kind of the things that you're thinking about in the context of Ohio State—but broadly, in terms of higher education, how you think coming out of the pandemic, is going to affect the future of higher education.
Namiko Kunimoto 22:45
Yeah, I think, unfortunately, I hate to say it, but it really is going to make a lot of these rifts even greater. Because we already know at this point that the pandemic has hit people of colour, tremendously hard—and is much, much more challenging for BIPOC people than it has been for, say, people of privilege who are all working at home who don't have service jobs, who can afford childcare at home. In Ohio, the public school systems were shut down for over a year, and then only in March, did they start to give two days a week. So, when I think about my own childhood, and what it might have meant for me to be out of school at that age ... I don't think it's too much to say that it's a life and death situation for many children, who don't have access to school. So those kinds of things are tremendous. And they also obviously impact that generations’ ability to get into good universities. So these effects are going to be long-standing, and there needs to be even more work to support these groups, such as affirmative action, such as immediate access to funds, and housing. And within the university too, we've also seen that some students fared poorly, and other students who are able to manage the online world. And a lot of that has to do with privilege and access too. So, I think the two issues of you know, race and the Black Lives Matter movement, and the issue of COVID are, are something that are really intertwined. Certainly in terms of the violence and racism towards Asian Americans. This is something that has affected some of my own grad students’ ability to get work done, and certainly been a major, you know, distraction, if not a source of major anxiety for myself as well.
Am Johal 24:39
Namiko, you've had a chance to be partially in Vancouver for part of this period. I know that you used to be in Sawagi Taiko back in the mid to late 90s. And you've had the chance to be with them again—until pandemic restrictions kicked in again. But I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your relationship to Sawagi Taiko.
Namiko Kunimoto 25:01
Yeah, so Sawagi Taiko is a long-running taiko group here in Vancouver. And actually my first interaction with them was when I was 11 years old, my grandfather brought me from Lethbridge to the Powell Street Festival. And we stayed in a little hotel in the Downtown Eastside, and went and checked it out. And I remember watching these … it's an all-women, all-Asian—we do have one First Nations drummer, as well. But an all non-white women's drumming group, that's also very politically active. And as an 11 year old watching them beat on those drums, I was just completely in love and decided I had to move to Vancouver as soon as I possibly could. So I did do that. When I was 18 I moved out, I started working in restaurants full-time to put myself through school, and tried to get into Sawagi, as much as I could. They weren't taking people immediately. So I was interviewing them for anthropology papers, and with Discorder Magazine, the CiTR radio magazine. And fortunately, eventually they did let me in, and I was able to join with the group and it was just a really meaningful time for me. I did go on and play taiko in Japan for two years, with a much more male-dominated group, but also really excellent players, and improve my Japanese ability. And then when I went to Berkeley as well, I was in a group in the Bay Area called Tatsumaki Taiko. I joined another group in Washington, DC called Nen Daiko that were affiliated with Buddhist temple. So I was able to maintain my taiko playing until I moved to Columbus, where unfortunately, there isn't a group. And I guess, it's fair to say that was just a huge loss in my life, because it was such a source of, you know, cultural community, that I had readily access through these music groups in the past, that had really been inspiring for me. And also just, I don't know if rehabilitating is too strong a word, but just sort of important to me at a personal level. And a lot of it had to do with issues of race as well. So being here in Vancouver, and Sawagi allowing me to play with them was really great. It's really sad, I can't practice with them now. But hopefully, I will be able to soon if things start to get under control again. The group is still really active. They perform pieces that are about, for example, the canneries in the Lower Mainland or about overcoming difficulties. They do a lot of benefit performances for Indigenous groups, or for feminist groups. So it's really a great thing to be a part of, and they practice down in the Japanese Hall, which is also a fun place for me to go.
Am Johal 27:40
Namiko, in your research, over the years, you've probably connected with the Nikkei Museum and other places in terms of historical archival research here in Vancouver. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the kinds of interesting roads you've gone down in terms of looking at the archives that exist in the city here.
Namiko Kunimoto 28:02
Yeah, so my master's thesis, as I said, was focused on the Japanese Canadian internment and family photographs that were taken before, during, and after. And a lot of those photographs were collected and donated to Nikkei Place, which has a museum there. And, in fact, my cousin—I guess she would be a second cousin, is now the director of the museum there. And they continue to do really important work about Japanese incarceration and also about building solidarity with other BIPOC community members who face racism now. And that's been a really important connection. Their archive has only grown. And it is a great place to do research as well. I'm really interested in visiting 312 Main and seeing the collection of photographs that you mentioned, as well. But I haven't had an opportunity because of COVID to really see that either. A lot of what I had experienced at UBC was really focused on Japan, in a more sort of contained national way. But it's interesting to see a lot of these connections open up with diasporic communities as well. So I'm hoping I can get to some of that work at 312 Main, and take a look at it as well.
Am Johal 29:12
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's the archives of the United Church of BC, which includes the archive of the Japanese United Church that was in the neighborhood. And a number of people who would get married there from other denominations. So they've got name records, photographs of that era, but also partially of the Japanese internment as well. But really, really important and wonderful archivists there, super friendly. There's been a really interesting group of accessible librarians who work at the Carnegie Center and Strathcona, the UBC Learning exchange, and others. And so there's this sort of group of radical archivists in and around the neighborhood, which has been really fascinating to connect with, and a great resource for the broader community, as well.
Namiko, how has your time in Vancouver been during the pandemic? I guess to some degree, you had a chance to be away in the context of the States, but you also landed into restrictions here in Vancouver?
Namiko Kunimoto 30:10
Yeah, it's been really interesting. I'm really grateful to be here. I think I've always been a person who loves Vancouver, just because there is such a vibrant, Asian Canadian and Japanese-Canadian community here. And, you know, because it's so beautiful. And I really connected with a lot of people like yourself at UBC. So I hold those times fondly. And I'm also really grateful to be here, because the public schools, for most younger children at least, have been in session. For my son, who is a very, very social being, it was tremendously hard for him to be in lockdown in Columbus. And it's unimaginable, what many of my friends are going through having their kids at home while they're working full-time for an entire year. While football games, bars, and everything else, were allowed to continue. So it’s a really clear statement on the priorities there. Whereas here, I think there's been a lot of effort to maintain schools. I realize there are safety concerns for teachers, and I really respect that, and understand that. But as I said, my own personal experience ... When I was younger, if I didn't have school, I think it would have been really, really, really horrific for myself and for many other children, I imagine who, you know, depend on school for structure, for social interaction, and sometimes for safety. So it's been great to be here in that respect. And I guess at the same time, I do wish that things would get better so that I could see some of my dear friends that I have here. We've kept our social life very, very small and outdoors. And I hope there's more opportunities to work with the community that I do love here, because that's something I was really looking forward to doing on my return. But honestly, I think we've been really privileged and grateful throughout this pandemic, to be … to be back in Canada, and to be able to just continue my work.
Am Johal 32:09
Namiko thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar, and I look forward to your book coming out in the next couple of years, Transpacific Erasures: Contemporary Art, Gender, Race and the Afterlives of Japanese Imperialism. Thank you so much for joining us.
Namiko Kunimoto 32:26
Thanks so much Am.
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Paige Smith 32:31
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. This has been our conversation with Namiko Kunimoto. You can find links to learn more about her book Stakes of Exposure, or her other writings, in the show notes below. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on Below the Radar.