Wendy Maruyama
You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap, 2008
Plywood, tarpaper, nails, and video components
Courtesy of the artist

In this work, Wendy Maruyama recalls her childhood innocence when watching Saturday morning cartoons. She did not know then that some of the cartoons, including the 1942 cartoon named in the title of the piece, functioned as deliberate anti-Japanese propaganda. You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap reveals the inappropriateness of such blatant racism for children, and questions the television executives who knowingly aired the programming. The tarpaper—the same material used in the construction of Japanese interment camps in the United States during WWII—stands as a reminder of the catastrophic effects experienced by Japanese Americans because of such propaganda.