2023-2024 K-State Common Works of Art

Each year the K-State Book Network selects a common reading for first-year students, providing an intellectual experience they can share with other students and members of the university community. The 2023 K-State First Book is the multi-award-winning graphic novel They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, illustrated by Harmony Becker. Beach Museum of Art staff have selected work by Lawrence, Kansas, artist Roger Y. Shimomura in the collection to complement Takei’s book about life in a World War II Japanese American concentration camp.

Following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066 in 1942, the Takei family was forced to live in the converted horse stables of Santa Anita Park before being sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. The family was later transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of the family’s years behind barbed wire, his mother's difficult choices, and his father's continued faith in democracy. A talented actor known for his role in the original Star Trek television series, Takei is also a political activist.

Shimomura was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1939 to Eddy and Aya Shimomura, who were nisei or second-generation Japanese Americans and American citizens. During World War II Shimomura was sent to the Minidoka concentration camp with his grandmother, parents and other family members. His memories of living in the camp as a child and his grandmother’s diaries have served as important sources for his art. Shimomura uses this and later experiences of being racially stereotyped to advocate for racial justice.

Takei and Shimomura ask us to explore the questions: What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide who is the enemy? How can you use your talents to make change?

Related event

K-State Student Welcome/First Book Celebration featuring the Common Works of Art
Thursday, September 7, 2023. 5:30 p.m.
Beach Museum of Art

2023-2024 Common Works of Art: works by Roger Y. Shimomura in the Beach Museum of Art collection

Left: Memories of Childhood, 1999, color lithograph (handmade book), 7 x 10 in., G. E. Johnson Art Acquisition Fund, 2002.340
Middle: American Guardian, 2007, color lithograph, 27 1/8 x 39 in., Kansas Printmakers Fund, 2007.109
Right: Enemy Alien #2, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 in., 2016.41

Click here to watch the video of Memories of Childhood handmade book of lithographs by Roger Shimomura.