A piece from Ben Sakoguchi's "Postcards from Camp"

San Bernardino Valley College alumnus Ben Sakoguchi channeled his experience as a Japanese American growing up during World War II into his art. 

Sakoguchi was born in San Bernardino in 1938, and just a few years later his family was incarcerated in an internment camp in Poston, Arizona. When they returned to San Bernardino after the war, they reopened their small grocery business, with difficulty. 

Sakoguchi attended SBVC from 1956 to 1958 and then went to UCLA, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art and a teaching credential. He joined the art faculty at Pasadena City College in 1964, and taught there until his retirement in 1997. Over the course of his career, Sakoguchi was awarded two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund Artists at Giverny residency, and received grants from the J. Paul Getty Trust and the California Arts Council. 

His art focuses on socially relevant themes, and one of his crowning achievements is “Postcards from Camp.” Sakoguchi used his own family photos and images taken by military, civilian, and internee photographers to create 80 paintings that describe the Japanese American experience. “Postcards from Camp” has been exhibited at schools, galleries, and museums across the country.