Yellow Terror, Roger Shimomura

The deluge of racialized stereotypes of Asians and Asian Americans depicted here originates from Shimomura’s collection of American memorabilia dating from the early 20th century through WWII. These depictions dehumanized Asians as “the other” in American visual culture. Exaggerated and flattened depictions of figures with mustard-yellow skin, buck teeth, and slanted eyes crowd the composition. Some figures are likened to animals such as the figure in the upper right caught in a rat trap and the snake at the painting’s center. The military uniforms of many figures in combination with the fighter planes in the sparse space at the center remind the viewer that these stereotypes not only ridiculed and isolated Asians and Asian Americans, but also depicted them as aggressors to be met with violence. At the center of this disturbing vortex, Shimomura appears pulling at the corners of his eyes, demonstrating his own experiences of being treated as an “other” and reduced to an amalgamation of the Asian stereotypes that surround him.