Roger Shimomura is an American artist and retired professor whose work explores ideas of Asian American sociopolitical issues through the usage of racist imagery. He paints racists incidents from the point of view of the racists themselves. Shimomura has said that one of his earliest memories comes from when he was 5 years old and him and his family were placed inside a concentration camp built in the US to detain Japanese-Americans during World War II. He has said that he will always remember watching his parents try to put their lives back together after the war was over. The issues around his artwork come from these racist events that happened in our country and how Asian Americans coped with acts of blatant racism, that even still occurs today. Shimomura deals with these issues that ultimately lead to issues of identity that stem from being an Asian America, especially during the time of WWII.
"It's the kind of material his parents' generation shunned, but Shimomura agrees with African American painter Kara Walker, who uses racist stereotypes in her work in order to defuse them"
-artsjournal.com
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