Professor Tina Takemoto

Paper #3 Response
Professor Tina Takemoto gives us a new insight of queer perspectives of people held captive in concentration camps. Takemoto wants to examine sexuality, race, memory, and grief of people through her art. The video we watched, Takemoto wants to look at same-sex relationships between Japanese Americans who were put into concentration camps in America during World War II. Mostly she looks at Japanese Americans and how their artistic approach in the 1950s. Takemoto approach to this subject is first to understand the artist Jiro Onuma and the symbolism behind his photography. Jiro Onuma was an Issei immigrant who was held captive in an American concentration camp for many years. He worked in the kitchen of the camp and had many

male physique magazines founded by Takemoto. His photographs are mostly from his life in the Topaz concentration camp. Takemoto looks through the many photo albums left behind of Jiro Onuma from the prewar to the postwar era.

His photographs give more insight into the queer experience of camp and Japanese history that shocked Takemoto. Onuma is one of the only gay Japanese Americans photographs ever to be depicted in the GLBT Historical Society archive.
Tina Takemoto arguments are valid when it comes to this subject because not many artists back in the 1950s were allowed for deliberately express their sexuality, especially during the war. Takemoto is interested in exploring the gay perspectives that have been blindsided by many historians as well as people from many different generations. Examining Jiro Onuma work allowed for Professor Takemoto to understand that many of his pictures were trying to depict his utopia world of being a Japanese gay man. His photographs are always being taken outside as well as making himself look like he wants to enjoy his life openly. She notices that in the pictures he has kept they are mostly of men and have underlying meaning behind them. Hearing Takemoto talk about the

findings of this man's work was very interesting because I mostly just saw a picture, but Takemoto was able to dissect it and tell the audience what Jiro wanted to be shown. We also see how Tina Takemoto uses what she learned about Jiro to incorporate into her live performance called "Looking For Jiro." The production has a music video structure that uses a Madonna song and Abba song that talks about waiting for a man that never arrived. She also has in the back World War propaganda making more from the unusual perspective. Lastly, Takemoto dresses as Jiro working in the mess hall making bread. Her live performance allows for her and the audience to understand what Jiro may have been feeling during this era. We see how Takemoto is doing the daily tasks of making bread which was Jiro's job and in the back many pictures that were captured during the war. By the end of the film, we see how Takemoto put the pieces of bread around her arms to symbolizes Jiro like for muscular men and freely dancing in the mess hall. The live performance connects to the era of content because we see how Takemoto who was playing Jiro contained in the beginning but late on starts to enjoy the music and freely express himself.
Tina Takemoto approach to art can relate back to our study of art because we are now looking at art that is not as classical as early works but moving into an era that is allowing people to express themselves freely.

Takemoto looking into sexuality opens up new ideas because many people do not bring this topic up in art nor history. Sexuality is a topic in our society that most people are not freely willing to discuss because everyone is different when it comes to what gender they like that some people find "abnormal" which is why Jiro was never voluntarily able to be himself. I feel that it is vital for an artist like Tina Takemoto to bring this up because we can see an artist back in the era of war were restricted and not talked about as much because of their sexuality. I found this talk very interesting and something that should be looked at in our society because art and history need to be able to gravitate to every person to allow them to see their perspective on

life.