DECADES: 1940s

Tying into Memorial Day and Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I wanted this piece to shine a light on those often overlooked in our history, and those that still unfortunately face discrimination and hate to this day. Americans had a great many Asian Americans join the Allied fight in WWII, and our territory of Hawaii became the site of the infamous Pearl Harbor base, where this piece is set. A great many women also served in the war as well, only in recent years being recognized at Arlington National Cemetery for their heroism. The heroine in this piece hopefully captures all these things that are often not talked about when we think of the 1940s. Hawaii of course won a fight for statehood years later. None can deny its importance during this pivotal decade.Though WWII was a catastrophic and horrific time in history, I wanted to showcase a much more positive image of the war ending in 1945, considering the more somber tone I had put into the 1930s piece. In the glasses: We see the horrors of the Pearl Harbor attack, the soldiers representing Battle of Normandy, and then all that fading out to make way for the triumphs we had in terms of innovation and achievement. I wanted to focus on this more, because though the War was the biggest event of the decade, we often don’t see the positive impact the decade had on us. The baseball player is the infamous Jackie Robinson. Robinson “Number 42” was the first African American man to play for a major baseball league team: The Dodgers. You may recognize the white-haired man as Albert Einstein. Einstein is widely considered the greatest theoretical physicist of all time. His famous theory of relativity is depicted here. Einstein became a US citizen in 1940 and helped the US during the war. Some might not know this, but Einstein was also a big civil rights activist and considered racism to be “the greatest disease.” He once paid the tuition of a black man, stating his compassion for others and how as a Jewish man, he knew what it was like to face discrimination.The colorful wheel was the very first color-TV system developed by CBS in the 1940s. I was very surprised to learn just how long ago colored television was being developed. TVs that could display the colors would not be available to purchase for years, but it was very interesting to learn that the technology was invented in this decade.The woman featured here is wearing a headscarf, button-up shirt and overalls: a very popular outfit for working women, especially those involved in the war effort. The newspaper she is holding is based on the real headline from newspapers published after Axis powers surrendered. “Peace. It’s Over!” truly said it all.