Ruth Aiko Asawa

Ruth Aiko Asawa (1926–2013) was a Japanese-American artist who specialized in elaborate hanging forms using hand-looped wire. Born in Norwalk, California, the fourth of seven children to her Japanese-born parents who earned a living in the U.S. as farmers. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, her father was imprisoned separately and she was sent to an internment camp with her family along with more than 100,000 West Coast Japanese. She lived for six months in the stables at Santa Anita Race Track in Los Angeles before transfer to a camp in Arkansas. She did not see her father again until 1948.