The AACP Newsletter Since 1970 Asian American Curriculum Project, Inc. July 2005 AsianAmericanBooks.com - The Most Complete Nonprofit-Source for Asian American Books An Interview With Ibuki Hibi Lee By Leonard D. Chan and Philip Chin The following is an interview with Ibuki Hibi Lee, the editor of Peaceful Painter: Memoir of an Issei Woman Artist. The book is an autobiography written by Ibuki Hibi Lee’s mother, artist Hisako Hibi. Ibuki’s father (Matsusaburo Hibi) and mother taught art at the Topaz internment camp (in Utah) during World War II. The book tells the story of Hisako Hibi - from her arrival in the United States, through her internment at Tanforan and Topaz, the loss of her husband after the war, her struggle to work and raise a family, and her never-ending love of art. AACP’s Hisako Hibi Gallery Windy http://AsianAmericanBooks.com/hibi.htm. February 1944, 20x24 in., oil on canvas, Topaz, Utah Interview therapist in 1960. My connection to art 1920 to join her parents here when she has been in the realm of art appreciation was thirteen years old. With the Ibuki, please tell us a little bit about and the legacy of my parents that art realization of newfound opportunities yourself - your background (education transverses time and space through all unavailable in Japan, she longed to remain and work history). Were you blessed human cultures. here. Her father had been successful with your parent's talents for art or are enough in his southern California business you just an art enthusiast like many of Tell us a little bit about your parents, to return to Japan in 1925 and to build his us? Did you come to find your own eye especially things that were not included family a home there. My mother was the for art? in the book. What influenced the eldest in her family and disobeyed her As far back as I can remember, I can artwork of your mother and father? father, refusing to return to Japan, recall my mother and father holding their Were they classically trained and was knowing that she would become the colorful palettes and painting on canvas this part of a long family traditions? It caretaker of her five younger siblings. So boards. They loved to paint, and I noted sounded like an interesting partnership she remained totally alone in San that they spent inordinate amounts of of two well-matched intelligent and Francisco afterwards, working as a quiet time in solitary, intense creative people. This did not sound like schoolgirl to complete her high school concentration. These were pleasant, your typical first generation couple's education. Since her language ability was peaceful times, and my parents did not experience. Care to expand on this limited, she was drawn to painting, as a need company to be happy. thought? means of self-expression. Throughout her My mother was happily living with her life, she found "consolation" in painting. I sought a career field with more daily devout Zen Buddhist grandmother in her (Continued on page 2) social interaction and graduated from U. farming village in Fukui-ken and C. Berkeley and became a physical reluctantly, came to the United States in _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Counting Our Blessings Or How I Can Say Something Good Too An Editorial by Leonard D. Chan A couple of years ago, my friend Gary Gary - maybe this is just my first theory, he believes that a society's read a string of my more critical editorials installment in a regular July series of technological and economical and asked if I could ever say a kind word counting our American blessings. advancements are more attributable to about the United States and our society. geography than to any other factor. At that time I thought, this should be easy. Have any of you read Jarod Diamond's Therefore, our environment is a bigger Contrary to his perceptions, I really do books on the rise and fall of societies? If reason why we have rocket ships and why love my country. So the deal was for me so, please excuse me if I get his message people in the jungles of New Guinea are to write a piece in our July newsletter as a wrong. I recently heard a NPR (National still pretty much living the same way they kind of patriotic gesture. Several Julys Public Radio) program discussing the have for 15,000 years. have passed and Gary reminds me each author's new PBS program based on his (Continued on page 4) time that he's still waiting. Well here it is books. From my understanding of his Give Us Your Feedback Editor's Message Please feel free to send us your reviews, comments, and book Hello Everyone. How's your summer going? In our last suggestions. You can contact us at - newsletter we had an article with some suggestions for [email protected] interesting Asian American travel destinations. It has been suggested to me that we should definitely do this again next year. So if you have some interesting travel destinations that we Up Coming Events can use for next year's newsletter, please take some notes now Here are some events that AACP will soon be attending. Invite and pass them along to us so we'll have them on record. us to your events. Date/Time Event Location For this newsletter, a big thank you goes to Ibuki Hibi Lee for July 23 Books by the Bay Yerba Buena doing the interview with us. A thank you also goes to Heyday 10am-4pm Gardens Publishing for allowing us to use some of the text and pictures San Francisco, CA from Peaceful Painter. Thank you Gary Poon for your editorial July 23-24 Ginza Bazaar & Obon Buddhist Church suggestion. Sa 1-10pm Odori of SF Su 11-8pm San Francisco, CA There are still a lot of volunteer opportunities with us. We Other Event of Interest that AACP May Not Attend welcome your help and we encourage you all to give us feedback, suggestions, and possible pieces that we could use for July 22-23 Manzanar Cultural Manzanar & Los our newsletter. Landscape Management Angles, CA Meeting That's it for now. Bye. July 22-24 The 7th Annual KAAN Southfield, Conference Michigan Leonard Chan (Korean Am. Adoptee Executive Editor Adoptive Family Network) July 24, 30- Stockton Obon Festival Stockton, CA 31 and Cultural Bazaar July 28-31 OCA's Annual Las Vegas, NV Convention Aug. 13-21 Nisei Week Little Tokyo Los Angeles, CA Aug. 13-14 Pistahan Festival Filipino arts, Sa 10-4pm culture and cuisine Su 10-4pm Yerba Buena Gardens San Francisco, CA Aug. 14 Pistahan Parade Civic Center to Su 11-2pm Yerba Buena San Francisco, CA Aug. 27-28 18th Annual Oakland Oakland 10am-6pm Chinatown StreetFest Chinatown Oakland, CA An Interview With Ibuki Hibi Lee - continued from page 1 My father came to Seattle in 1906 as a San Francisco Art Institute) for eleven Please tell us a bit about the quality, nineteen-year-old student, supported by years. styles, and importance of your mother's his silk industry business family in Shiga- work? How is your mother's work ken. He would relate to me his dislike for My parents met at the art school and regarded in the art world? What business and the constant attention given married in 1930 with Chiura Obata as individual characteristics made your to counting money. He was the youngest their best man. My mother would tell me mother's artwork stand out from in a large family and sought adventure in that she had many Japanese suitors in others? Were there any hidden the western world. He worked as a business and farming at that time, but my meanings or secret symbolism in her handyman and also wrote articles for father was the only one, who understood art that your mother told you about or Japanese language newspapers here in the art and would allow her to continue to that you discovered on your own? The U.S. Later, he discovered his deep interest paint after marriage. book mentioned that some of the and love for painting and attended the artwork was left with a neighbor before California School of Fine Arts (now the you left for the internment camps - Page 2 what ever happened to the paintings, I started to edit her memoirs in 1999, sometime in the 1980's, and as I were you able to recover them all? transferring them on to my old Apple remember, Yoshiko wrote back a reply My mother displayed her paintings in Bay computer, when my mother had her that my mom's writing needed much Area major museums, shows, and retrospective exhibit at the new Japanese editing before it would be acceptable to a exhibitions before World War II. She American National Museum in Los publisher. recovered only four paintings from this Angeles, "A Process in Reflection." period. The Hayward neighbor, who had Languishing in a furoshiki (a cloth On another note my adult 38 y/o daughter stored some paintings, had died by the wrapper), I rediscovered the memoirs and in Virginia is currently contracted with time of her return to the Bay Area in took more interest in my own mother's the Children's Book Press in San 1954. Michael Brown, an Asian art author legacy to me. Francisco to write a children's (3rd grade (Views from Asian California, 1920- level) fictionalized book about the art 1965) and collector, has found a few of Kimi Kodani Hill informed me about the school at Topaz.