A child rides a bicycle in the sun, while not too far away, a young girl skips rope. A grandmother, sitting in a wheelchair, visits with friends. A boy no older than five years old walks along in a cowboy getup. One woman offers a plate of food to another. A blonde girl and a Japanese girl — classmates and friends — smile together.

The ordinary, human scenes of childhood play, neighbors, and friends are unsettled only by the pervading presence of barbed wire and black squares. The depictions are featured in a series of paintings by renowned artist Roger Shimomura, whose select works from an exhibit and book, Shadows of Minidoka, are on display at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center (ONLC) through October 7.

The exhibit highlights everyday life during Japanese-American incarceration in World War II. About 120,000 Japanese Americans living in Oregon, Washington, and California were forcibly removed from their homes to internment camps in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, and as far east as Arkansas. Sixty percent of those detained between 1942 through 1946 were United States citizens.

Like many of Shimomura’s past collections, "Selections from Shadows of Minidoka" highlights the sociopolitical issues of identity, ethnicity, history, and racial justice. The works featured are among 75 paintings, 35 lithographs, and at least 25 performance pieces created by Shimomura since the 1970s — all of which focus on the Japanese-American incarceration experience.

Barbed wire and black panels draw the divide between the people in Shimomura’s "shadows." One painting depicts a man with a button that says "I Am Chinese" standing in the foreground, with barbed wire behind him. A man in military uniform stands behind the barbed wire in the piece titled "Furlough."

A large painting, "American Infamy," is striking because it displays the heft and girth of the American military presence in the lives of American civilians of Japanese descent during the war. The guards in uniform with sniper rifles loom large in the landscape, keeping a sinisterly watchful eye on minute representations of children and families, doing everyday things. When people first view the painting, Shimomura says they are often surprised to learn "that machines in the guard towers were used in a threatening way during the early stages of the incarceration period."

Shimomura was born in Seattle and incarcerated at the internment camp in Minidoka, where Oregonian Americans of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated with him. As a young child at Minidoka, Roger lived and played with other Nisei — or children of parents born in Japan who immigrated to the United States — who called Portland, Hood River, and other parts of Oregon home. The artworks on display in "Selections from Shadows of Minidoka" speak to their shared experience.

Shimomura’s paintings are being exhibited in various communities across the United States, giving an opportunity to educate people about a dark period in American history that is often overlooked in lessons about World War II.

"People outside of the west coast frequently have never heard of the incarceration experience," wrote Shimomura in an e-mail interview with The Asian Reporter. "People in many Midwestern and Southern states believe it was the right thing to do at the time. So, the paintings are usually ‘received’ in similar fashion to the audience’s knowledge of the time period."

"Selections from Shadows of Minidoka" is the second exhibit of Shimomura’s work at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center. In 2007, the center featured "Roger Shimomura: Three Lithographic Suites on the Internment Experience." To mark the opening of the display, ONLC hosted a special talk by Shimomura this summer. According to Todd Mayberry, the center’s director of collections and exhibits, about 45 friends and supporters of the center attended.

"We also welcomed a new audience who, as yet, had never visited the Legacy Center before. For the ONLC, having such a diverse group of people, so fully representative of our greater community, speaks to the strength of Roger’s work," said Mayberry. "Yet, as we heard from Roger, understanding his experience and why he chose to create these artworks, we were reminded of how truly special Roger himself is. Without him, we wouldn’t have a reason to gather, engage with each other, and together grow as a community."

For Shimomura, the importance of educating new generations about the Japanese-American incarceration during the war is as important as ever.

"It could happen again," he said. "We came close during the Iran Hostage Crisis when there was talk about isolating all Iranians and Iranian Americans until they proved themselves innocent. There was similar talk during Operation Desert Storm. Then, Arab Americans were threatened after the attacks [on September 11, 2001]. So it can definitely happen again — it almost did."

In exhibiting the paintings alongside the evidence of incarceration on permanent display at ONLC, the center hopes to raise important questions among Portlanders about the essence of community: Who is accepted? Who is marginalized? Who gets to stand in front of the barbed wire, and not behind it?

"The paintings help address the core questions the ONLC attempts so hard to engage, that being not only what it means to be Japanese American, but how we might define ‘community.’ The figures one sees surrounded by barbed wire and walking among camp barracks are the people of Oregon," said Mayberry. "The little boy in the baseball uniform or the young girl skipping rope could be your family, your friend, or your neighbor."

Shimomura’s works are on view through Sunday, October 7 at ONLC, located at 121 N.W. Second Avenue in Portland’s Chinatown. To learn more, call (503) 224-1458, or visit <www.oregonnikkei.org> or <www.rshim.com>.