MIKA YATSUHASHI

A Rude Awakening: The Myth of the American Dream

Author Anastasia Koutsogiannis

Artist Mika Yatsuhashi

Artwork An Uninterrupted View of the Sea, 2020

What does it take to be considered a true American? A few years before the eruption of World War II, the United States put together custodial detention lists of Japanese-Americans across the country. Should war occur, this list would be used to gather anyone who the federal government thought suspicious. After the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, the names on those lists were deemed as “enemy aliens.” The Japanese community in the U.S. underwent surveillance, with many being forced into army-run internment camps.¹ A testimony to these disturbing times, Yatsuhashi’s film An Uninterrupted View of the Sea explores the experience of her great-grandfather, Haruchimi Yatsuhashi, a Japanese-American. Having arrived in 1907, the young businessman settled in Boston as the respected vice-president of the notable art company Yamanaka and Co. After years of contributing to society Yatsuhashi was met with suspicion and investigations. Grappling with familial archives, the perfect American life reveals itself to be completely false.

Settled into the gallery’s immersive Black Box, scenes of nostalgia and happy recollections travel across the screen. Despite the sweet moments, a palpable tension looms. As the FBI’s cold words sweep across our view, the filmmaker reveals her hands and voice as a guide to her family’s past. Yatsuhashi has explained the significance of her formal choices: “My goal with the cut-outs was to have you read them as I read them : with laser focus and with specific attention to the language.”² Through this, the filmmaker allows us to experience the deconstruction of the document just as she did. Sharp, mechanical words and sounds oppose the summer joy as the federal documents seep into the reverie. At the hands of a systemically racist operation, an “uninterrupted view of the sea in either direction” became a suspicion. The filmmaker shared, “even if you [an immigrant in America] succeed as much as possible, you can still get knocked down.”³ This sort of system is impossible to defeat. For the Japanese-American community, their “Americanness” is given and taken away as society wishes. No matter how far one climbs the social ladder, instability is a looming and large presence.