Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz (born 1933) is an American artist and art educator; her paintings depict her memories of a childhood during the Japanese American internment.
Chizuko Judy Sugita was born in Orange, California, the youngest of nine children; her mother died from complications soon after Chizuko's birth. Her Hiroshima-born father owned a nursery. [1] In 1942, her family was sent to Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona, as part of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. [2] They were released from Poston when Chizuko was twelve. After the war, she returned to Southern California with her father, and settled in Huntington Beach. [3] [4]
Chizuko Judy Sugita earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills. [4] In 1953, she was chosen as Nisei Week Queen. [5] [6]
Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz worked as an art teacher at Palos Verdes High School, and served as chair of the school's art department. [7] After early retirement following a workplace injury, she turned to watercolor painting full-time, and took up her childhood memories of camp life as her theme. [8] [9] Her illustrated memoir, Camp Days, 1942-1945, was published in 2004, with an introduction by George Takei. [10]
An exhibit of her watercolors about her childhood in Poston, "Camp Days, 1942-1945," was first shown at the Palos Verdes Art Center near her home, in 2009. [11] It has since appeared at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (in 2010-11). [12] [13] She lectures on her life and work, saying "This is what I wanted to leave for my grandchildren, I wanted them to know what their parents and family went through." [14]
Montez Productions made a film of her story, "Childhood Memories of Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz," in 2011. [15] Her art also appears in the documentary "Heart Mountain: An All-American Town," by Raechel Donahue. [16]
Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz is married to Richard de Queiroz. [6]
Little Tokyo, also known as Little Tokyo Historic District, is an ethnically Japanese American district in downtown Los Angeles and the heart of the largest Japanese-American population in North America. It is the largest and most populous of only three official Japantowns in the United States, all of which are in California. Founded around the beginning of the 20th century, the area, sometimes called Lil' Tokyo, J-Town, Shō-Tōkyō (小東京), is the cultural center for Japanese Americans in Southern California. It was declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1995.
Mitsuye Yamada is a Japanese American poet, essayist, and feminist and human rights activist. She is one of the first and most vocal Asian American women writers to write about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
The Rafu Shimpo is a Japanese-English language newspaper based in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California and is the largest bilingual English-Japanese daily newspaper in the United States. As of February 2021, it is published online daily. In print publication is only on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County in southwestern Arizona, was the largest of the 10 American concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during World War II.
Nisei Week is an annual festival celebrating Japanese American (JA) culture and history in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Nisei means 2nd generation in Japanese, describing the first American born Japanese, a group which the seven-day festival was originally meant to attract. Though named for the Nisei generation, Nisei Week is no longer targeted at Niseis, nor is the festival still contained within a week. Nisei Week Foundation president for 2006, Michelle Suzuki, described the festival as "the opportunity for people of all backgrounds to celebrate Japanese heritage and culture".
Dan Kwong is an American performance artist, writer, teacher and visual artist. He has been presenting his solo performances since 1989, often drawing upon his own life experiences to explore personal, historical, and social issues.
People from Japan began emigrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Japanese immigration to the Americas started with immigration to Hawaii in the first year of the Meiji era in 1868.
Frances Kazuko Hashimoto was an American businesswoman, schoolteacher, and social activist. She was a key figure and proponent of Los Angeles' Little Tokyo neighborhood. She was the head of Mikawaya confectionery company since 1970, where Hashimoto, the inventor of mochi ice cream, also introduced the dessert to American consumers.
Karin Higa was a curator and specialist in Asian American art.
40 Families History Project is a community history project, focused on the vanished Japanese-American farming community of Palos Verdes, California.
Wintersburg Village is an area in Huntington Beach, California, United States, that represents over a century of Japanese immigration to the United States. The property, consisting of six structures on a 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) parcel, was noted as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in the City of Huntington Beach General Plan in 2014. The C.M. Furuta Gold Fish Farm and the Wintersburg Japanese Mission are recognized nationally by historians as a rare, pre-1913 Japanese pioneer-owned property with intact physical features that convey the progression of Japanese American history.
Yosh Kuromiya was an American artist and landscape architect.
Chizuko is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include:
The Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution is celebrated on January 30 in California and a growing number of additional states to commemorate the birthday of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American civil rights activist best known for resisting the internment of Japanese Americans. It also recognizes American civil liberties and rights under the Constitution of the United States. It is the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American.
Tsutomu "Jimmy" Mirikitani was an American artist notable as the subject of the 2006 documentary film The Cats of Mirikitani.
T. K. Shindo was a Japanese photographer.
James Kanno served as the first mayor of Fountain Valley, California from 1957 to 1962. He was one of the first mayors of Asian descent in the United States.
Chizu Iiyama was a Japanese American activist, social worker, and educator active in the Redress Movement, desegregation in Chicago, and other causes. She is best known for her contributions to the Japanese American Redress Movement, which sought to obtain reparations and a formal apology from the United States government for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Nobu Kawano, nicknamed "Nobe", was an American baseball clubhouse manager, best known for being the clubhouse manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1959 to 1991.