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WORK TITLE: RUTH ASAWA
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WEBSITE: https://www.samnakahira.com
CITY: Los Angeles
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School Library Journal vol. 70 no. 3 Mar., 2024. Anna Ching-Yu. Wong, “NAKAHIRA, Sam. Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape.”. p. 103.
Kirkus Reviews Mar. 1, 2024, , “Nakahira, Sam: RUTH ASAWA.”. p. NA.
The Horn Book Magazine vol. 100 no. 3 May-June, 2024. Brabander, Jennifer M. , “Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape.”.
Booklist vol. 120 no. 14 Mar. 15, 2024, Thornburgh, Rebecca. , “Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape.”. p. 58.
Sam Nakahira (she/they) is a comic artist and illustrator from Los Angeles. She makes comics about overlooked histories, the natural world, dreams, and more—mostly within a framework of Japanese / Japanese American history and mythology. Her comics have been published by The Nib, Knock LA, and Whetstone Magazine. She graduated from Grinnell College and the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Sam's debut graphic novel, Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape, was published by the Getty and Abrams Books in March 2024.
Open for commissions and teaching comics and art workshops/classes! Please send a message with your rate and project to samnakahira@gmail.com
Sam Nakahira ’19 says, “For a long time, I wanted to make comics or draw stories, but I didn’t think about it seriously until Grinnell.” “Coming to Grinnell, seeing so many interesting people organizing and doing different things …, opened me to other ways of thinking and thinking I could do more [creative work],” she explains. She began doing more of that work as a student at the College, creating a comic based on her Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program research, publishing comic zines in Press, a student publisher, and co-teaching a comics and manga course through the Liberal Arts in Prison Program. She recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Center for Cartoon Studies.
Cartoon of Sam
Sam Nakahira ’19
Master of Fine Arts at the Center for Cartoon Studies
HOMETOWN: Torrance, California
MAJOR, CONCENTRATION: History and American studies
EXTRACURRICULARS, WORK: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) creating comic, Grinnell College Press, Liberal Arts in Prison Program, and Faulconer Gallery
OCS: European History at Danish Institute of Study
SUMMER JOBS OR INTERNSHIPS: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program and MAP on Louisiana sugar plantations
Rabbit Holes: From Historical Research to Comics
Nakahira participated in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, a prestigious program that supports students from underrepresented groups in becoming distinguished scholars. Through that program, she carried out a two-year research project on post-World War II Japanese-American farming and food retail communities in California. As a history major, she says, “I really like going down different rabbit holes.” One such rabbit hole led her to Bill Fujimoto, a Japanese-American food retailer in Berkeley, California who sold his produce to influential Bay Area restaurants. His role in these restaurants and in the farm-to-table movement has largely been erased, but Nakahira thinks, “It’s important to give credit where it’s due.” So, in a MAP with Professor of Studio Art Jeremy Chen, she created a comic giving Fujimoto the credit he is due.
Challenging Dominant Narratives
Nakahira’s experiences as a history major shaped her interest in writing non-fiction comics, and the culture of the College shaped whose stories she wanted to tell and how. “Hearing different perspectives from people and different ways that people think and see the world was really influential to me,” she explains. In addition to the diverse perspectives, she discovered a shared curiosity “to learn more about different people and different communities and histories.” From that learning she also found a desire to educate, to tell stories that challenge dominant historical narratives. She says education has the power to “raise awareness of different histories and different ways of thinking about the world.” Through her comics, she is doing just that.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
31 Days Of CCS #5: Sam Nakahira
Sam Nakahira is a young but prolific cartoonist who has already published a lot of comics heading into her first year at the Center for Cartoon Studies. That includes a 100+ page graphic memoir/journalism and several minicomics as she seeks to find her voice as an artist. This is still very much a work in progress, especially from a visual perspective, but all of the building blocks are there. Much of her work to date centers on different aspects of being a fourth-generation Japanese-American. A Japanese Doll is a sparse and poetic meditation on how Americans went from having a friendship doll exchange in the early 20th century to virulent hatred when Pearl Harbor came around. Patriotism quickly mutated into racist jingoism, with a twisted fury turned on Japanese-Americans; this comic notes how the way in which there was a run on destroying these dolls reflected the ways in which Japanese women were thought of us quiet and subservient.
Nakahira's anger is even sharper and more pronounced in Not Your Oriental Fantasy. Here, she calls out the ways in which the fetishization of Asian women is little more than a control fantasy; again, there's that passive doll imagery. Nakahira talks about the trend in America in the last century of Japanese war brides and the idea that they'd be passive, but Nakahira instead notes their powerful agency. They were willing to walk away from their home country, and they were willing to walk away when things got dark in America. Nakahira's use of shadow and imagery is powerful in this comic, viscerally supporting her ideas with a few key images on each page. That clarity of layout was essential in getting her points across.
Disconnection is about a college friend who was otherwise intelligent but was unable to perceive racism either against her (as someone of East Asian descent) or in general. It's a function of privilege and being unable to see how that privilege warps one's worldview. Nakahira admits at the end that she wasn't really sure where she was going with this comic other than to voice frustration with this person on paper, and it shows in how the visuals didn't really add much to the story.
The Astrologer is a different kind of experiment for Nakahira, as she eschews her simpler storytelling techniques and opts for a more poetic and visually dense style. This is fiction about an astrologer who's fading further and further away from reality and her family. Some of the images, especially on the first few pages, are striking in the way Nakahira blends foreground and background images. The shadowy form of the astrologer blending in with the shadows of the night sky is especially beautiful. The more mundane images at the end feel stiff and bland in comparison, and part of this is because Nakahira doesn't quite have a grip on body language and how bodies relate to each other in space.
Her most ambitious comic is Bill's Quiet Revolution, a work of memoir and journalism that delves into the grocer Bill Fujimoto, who was one of the source suppliers for the California Cuisine farm-to-fork revolution. The story begins with Nakahira eating with her mother and openly wondering about how much culture she's lost and how much has suppressed thanks to Japanese people being sent to concentration camps in the US. That was a zero event that affected the lives of every Japanese-American person in the United States at the time and one that still resonates today. In particular, her mom noted that it wasn't uncommon for Japanese-Americans to deliberately distance themselves from their culture; in their case, it meant identifying with Japanese-Hawaiian culture.
That was the background that led Nakahira to discover Bill Fujimoto, who inherited and expanded his father's business as a produce grocer in Northern California. The fascinating thing about the practice is the intersection between capitalism and art. For Fujimoto, the goal wasn't to simply sell as much stuff as possible. Instead, it was to sell the right things and knowing what that meant. In many respects, he was a produce critic and editor, which meant that he was constantly looking for new and interesting small farms and for the freshest, most interesting produce. It meant understanding weather, soil, and many other trends. What he didn't realize is that he was at the center of not just a local food revolution, but the beginning of a trend that would extend not just to restaurants, but to daily living.
Nakahira breaks the story down into his background, his relationship with small farmers, and the mutually beneficial relationship with restaurateurs. Those chefs were looking for ingredients that set their food apart, and Fujimoto's artisanal understanding of food gave them exactly what they needed. There's a scene where a customer is amazed at how good a simple chicken and vegetable dish was, and the chef correctly gives credit to the source. Fujimoto advised and encouraged small farmers to be bold and try new things, and locally-sourced food has been the backbone of both the farm-to-fork restaurant movement, it's had an influence on larger chain stores. Freshness, flavor, and health became as important than mass production and convenience. Nakahira interestingly ties all of this into his Japanese background, even if he didn't come out and explicitly make this connection himself. The work ethic, the craft, and the tradition went back years in America,as many Japanese immigrants set up farms.
Nakahira's research and attention to detail are excellent. Nakahira's reportage is top-notch, both in terms of doing the legwork on the grocer scene but also doing the work with regard to secondary sources that provided facts, figures, and dates. Adding her own personal story to the mix was an interesting move that paid off, though I wish she had been a little more specific at the end when she was tying together his ancestry with his expertise. Nakahira has a real talent for humanizing a particular topic while providing a deep well of knowledge for the reader to draw from. She made the reader care about Fujimoto both as a person and as a trailblazer, and his humility, in particular, shone through. Visually, Nakahira is absolutely rock-solid in terms of layouts and storytelling. She made the story visually interesting and compelling. Again, her weakness is in character interaction, and her figures, in general, are a bit stiff. She's not quite mastered the nuances of facial expressions either. Her line is functional and did the job, but there were times I wish there had been more visual flourishes that really made the food snap on the page. All of this is just a matter of time, repetition, and drawing from life. All in all, Nakahira has the makings of an excellent memoirist and an even better graphic journalist.
Posted by Rob Clough at 3:00 AM
Labels: sam nakahira
Interview with Sam Nakahira, MFA ‘21, and James Sturm
An Element of Recovery
An Exit Interview with Sam Nakahira, MFA ‘21, and James Sturm
You make comics about things that interest you: overlooked histories, dreams, mythology, Marxism, and more. Can you tell me about one or two of the comics that make up your senior thesis project and what attracted you specifically to those subjects?
My thesis, Redefinition, is an anthology of short nonfiction comics, each one exploring overlooked histories. I wanted to use this year to think more critically about and transform my understanding of how US imperialism and racial capitalism structure our world. I spent a good part of the year creating a comic about American consumption of K-pop. I became interested in studying American imperialism in Korea after I became a big K-pop and BTS fan about two years or so ago. While learning about the Korean War, I soon realized that most Americans consume K-pop without understanding the US role in the division of Korea and the creation of the South Korean state.The comic was a reflection on the unseeing Western gaze, how Americans often ignore the impact of US colonization on the world.
Another comic I worked on was about wakashu, the third gender of Edo Japan. I like to explore histories about how people organized their lives and sense of self in non-Western countries before Western colonization erased their traditions and way of life. I think there’s also an element of recovery to my work, a desire to bring marginalized histories to the center.
Your work blends aspects of journalism, advocacy, and creative writing into a very spare and poetic sensibility. Does that sound like a good description of your work?
Yes, that’s a great description. I take different approaches to making comics, and I’m still trying to figure out a good balance between them all. My approach often depends on the subject matter and what I’m trying to convey in a particular comic. I’d like to work more in fiction someday, but as of recently, I feel a lot more motivated to work on nonfiction comics. I spend a lot of time thinking about Grace Lee Boggs’s idea of visionary organizing, artists creating work that allow us to reimagine ourselves outside of capitalism. And often, I feel like working in creative nonfiction is more effective in that pursuit.
Whose work has influenced and shaped your approach to making comics?
My approach to comics has been shaped by a lot of the cartoonists who graduated before me at The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS): Dan Nott, Leise Hook, and Issy Manley. I find Issy’s comics to be so thoughtful and engaging; I love the way she takes readers on an exploratory journey of her thoughts about an issue in her comics. I especially admire Dan and Leise’s evocative visual metaphors and symbolic imagery to convey difficult, complex issues. When I first read Dan’s comics and looked at his innovative drawings, I felt this sense of excitement, like I never imagined that people are able to convey and communicate ideas in this way. Most nonfiction comics and comics journalism that I’ve read tend to use somewhat mundane, literal imagery to convey their writing–probably because it’s so hard to draw and represent ideas in a visually stunning but accurate and respectful manner. With my nonfiction comics, I tend to focus more on the writing, but lately, I’ve also been trying to think more visually, too.
You worked with Dan Nott as a thesis advisor. What was that like?
It was so amazing! I’m so grateful for all his help and support—I appreciate his dedication to mentorship, as I know he was super busy teaching at CCS and working on his book this past year. He provided a lot of editorial feedback and close readings of my many drafts. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through so many drafts for my comics like this year. There was a lot of restructuring and reworking the text and drawings, and Dan always carried the same editorial energy into carefully reading my numerous drafts. I also admired how he would come up with questions and insights into the drafts that made me think more deeply about the subject matter of the comic. Dan also explained a lot of his process to me and gave me various exercises to work out different parts of my comics. This past year, I was his teacher’s assistant for Survey of the Drawn Story, so during our thesis meetings, we also talked a lot about class material and comics and cartoonists in general, which also helped me broaden my perspective of the field. I feel so lucky to have him as a thesis advisor and to have learned so much from him about comics and creating them.
It sounds like CCS has profoundly influenced the way you approach cartooning.
Yes, in so many ways! Before coming to CCS, I think I was creating more of illustrated text rather than comics, not truly understanding the medium. I’ve learned a lot from my classmates and teachers, and I think the CCS community’s excitement for comics and zines has helped me appreciate the craft of making comics and valuing how cartoonists create interesting, effective connections and symbiosis between drawings and words. I also feel grateful for the CCS Schulz Library; being able to read the work from different artists has also broadened my understanding of comics and what is possible with the field.
You worked with me and a team of Harvard students on the healthcare system comic. What was that like for you? What did you learn about healthcare and working on that comic book?
Such an incredible experience, I loved collaborating with you and the team for various parts of the project and seeing the different perspectives that each person brought to the comic. I enjoyed creating short comics and drafts with non-cartoonists, Harvard medical students, and I learned a lot from them. As a nonfiction cartoonist, I also admired and found it educational to see your comics-making process, how you structured the comic about such a complex topic and from reading the different drafts leading up to the final comic.
Before the project, I always felt confused and over my head when trying to understand the US healthcare system, so I appreciate getting the chance to take the time to study, research, and grapple with its complexities with a group of people. I knew the system had many flaws, but I didn’t realize the extent of it: thinking about the many ways in which hospitals and private companies are able to maximize profit from healthcare, like the billing system, really shook me. Overall, this project has made me feel more strongly about how we need more change and accessible information about our healthcare system. I also enjoyed learning about how the Civil Rights Movement played a huge role in legalising Medicare and moving Americans towards the concept of universal healthcare. I feel like our history books need to better communicate these histories and the expanse of the Civil Rights Movement.
How did the collaborative nature of that project differ from your own practice?
The project was different from my own comics-making, since like most creators, I work independently on the story and drawings for comics. I like to have others read my drafts, so I can see what’s working and not for readers. But other than that, there’s not so much of a collaborative element. I think it takes different skills to work on a team and figure out the narrative and images of a comic together. Everyone had an area of the comic to focus on, but James really tied everything together into one cohesive draft. And Kazimir Lee’s drawings added a lot of meaning to the comic, too.
For this project, it was different in that I spent a lot more time thinking about how to write and draw for an audience. I’m not sure if it’s instinctual, but oftentimes, my personal feelings come out when I make comics. My comics are not completely journalistic since I incorporate my own opinions when writing. But for this comic, I learned the value in taking a more neutral approach to communicating information, to draw more people into reading the comic. I also would not have thought to create animals in the style of Richard Scarry to engage readers and make the subject matter more approachable.
What attracted you to this project?
I was excited to work on this project as I found it so compelling and inspiring; with the pandemic, it’s easy to see that the healthcare system in America has long been broken and needs change. And most Americans don’t understand their insurance plans nor how exactly private industries take advantage of people. I thought it would be cool to contribute to a public education project that uses comics to convey information about a complex topic.
Tags: CCS Alum, history comics, interview, mythology, nonfiction comics, Sam Nakahira
NAKAHIRA, Sam. Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape. illus. by Sam Nakahira. 112p. Getty. Mar. 2024. Tr $19.95. ISBN 9781947440098.
Gr 7 Up--A graphic biography that follows the life of Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), a Japanese American artist renowned for her innovative wire sculptures. Asawa grew up on a farm with her family in Southern California. She was a teen when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and her family was forced to abandon their farm. Her father was incarcerated, and she and the rest of her family were sent to a concentration camp in Arkansas. It was there, while imprisoned, that Asawa cultivated her dreams of becoming an artist. Nakahira chronicles Asawa's life with great detail, continuing with Asawa graduating high school in the camp and obtaining a scholarship to attend Milwaukee State Teacher College to become an art teacher, where she was unable to finish her degree due to anti-Japanese discrimination. Encouraged by her friends, Asawa entered the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina to study art. The book also includes coverage of other historical figures, like Asawa's great instructors Bauhaus-trained artists Anni and Josef Albers, inventor R. Buckminister Fuller, and choreographer Merce Cunningham, all who lent themselves to the transformation of her art making. VERDICT A first purchase; this detailed visual biography illustrates the story of an important Japanese American artist emerging from one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century--the incarceration of Japanese Americans. --Anna Ching-Yu Wong
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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Wong, Anna Ching-Yu. "NAKAHIRA, Sam. Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape." School Library Journal, vol. 70, no. 3, Mar. 2024, p. 103. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786340747/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b36fc1f9. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
Nakahira, Sam RUTH ASAWA Getty Publications (Teen None) $19.95 3, 19 ISBN: 9781947440098
A graphic biography that paints a captivating portrait of a Japanese American artist's road to success against the odds.
The book opens with scenes of a teenage Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) working alongside her family--her Japanese immigrant parents and several brothers and sisters--on their California farm, where she daydreams of becoming an artist. But her reverie is abruptly cut short by news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Asawa's father was arrested by the FBI, while her mother and six of the seven Asawa siblings (one was living in Japan) ended up in an incarceration camp in Arkansas. A supportive white teacher helped Asawa get into a teachers' college in Milwaukee, but when she was denied the chance to graduate because of her ethnicity, Asawa pursued her first love, art, transferring to the experimental Black Mountain College in rural North Carolina. There, she became embedded in a world of contemporary artists who were pushing boundaries, launching her own career as a celebrated sculptor. Nakahira's lively black-and-white illustrations blend ink drawing with digital coloring. They convey her characters' emotions as well as the wire sculptures for which Asawa is known. The spare text, which combines invented dialogue with reflections from Asawa's first-person perspective, highlights with subtlety and touches of humor the obstacles women and Japanese Americans faced in mid-20th-century America.
An inspiring, beautifully rendered book about an artistic dream that came true. (biography of Asawa, suggested reading, photos, image credits) (Graphic biography. 13-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Nakahira, Sam: RUTH ASAWA." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A784238453/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8198b9ff. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape
by Sam Nakahira; illus. by the author
Intermediate, Middle School Getty 112 pp. 3/24 9781947440098 $19.95
This graphic-format biography of Japanese American artist Asawa (1926-2013) begins on December 7, 1941, as teenage Ruth and her farming family hear that Japan has attacked Pearl Harbor. Soon the FBI arrests her father ("They think he's dangerous? He can't even kill a chicken for dinner"), and the rest of the family are sent to Santa Anita Racetrack, where they must sleep in horse stables. But luckily for Ruth, interned Disney animators are teaching drawing classes. "Everything was gray until I met the cartoonists ... Truly, art saved me." After the family is sent to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, Ruth receives a college scholarship. She studies art education in Milwaukee--then isn't allowed to graduate; the war has ended, but prejudice hasn't. At the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Ruth thrives and begins working on the wire sculptures for which she becomes so well known. A theme throughout is Ruth's sheer determination--to not become a farmer; to study art; to marry the white man she loved despite their families' disapproval, to have children ("I want six") and still be an artist. Gratifyingly, the book closes with her doing just that. Nakahira's black-and-white illustrations, clear and direct, allow viewers to see both the helplessness and courage of those who were forcibly incarcerated. The art is also ideal for illuminating the lines, shapes, and empty spaces of Asawa's famous wire sculptures. Appended are further biographical information, a reading list, and photos of the artist and her work. JENNIFER M. BRABANDER
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
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Brabander, Jennifer M. "Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 3, May-June 2024, pp. 159+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A793839462/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d3cd19c7. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.
Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape. By Sam Nakahira. Illus. by the author. Mar. 2024. 112p. Getty, $19.95 (9781947440098). Gr. 7-12. 741.5
Despite harrowing life challenges, inventive artist Ruth Asawa never gave up on her passion for making art. Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the teenager and her Japanese American family were sent to an incarceration camp; despite its harsh conditions, Ruth found joyful self-expression in art classes. Later, when postwar racism denied her hopes of becoming a teacher, Ruth patiently persisted, overcoming obstacles to study at the innovative Black Mountain College. Inspired there by Bauhaus artist Josef Albers, Ruth discovered the intricate wonders she could conjure with a mere coil of wire. With spare text and monochromatic washes over simple linework, comics creator Nakahira expressively outlines the arduous, yet ever-hopeful path this young dreamer pursued to become a stunningly innovative interpreter of shapes and spaces. Richly informative back matter expands on Ruth's life and work with photographs of the artist and her intriguing art. A sensitive and compelling portrait of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, certain to inspire readers to explore the creative possibilities coiled within the simplest materials.--Rebecca Thornburgh
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
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Thornburgh, Rebecca. "Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 14, 15 Mar. 2024, p. 58. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A788125004/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f5b7ae61. Accessed 3 Aug. 2024.