The Bonus March: The Unexpected Black Hero in a Japanese American Painting

An early twentieth-century painting provides unexpected insight into building interminority solidarity today.

By Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt

T

he tightly packed painting seems ready to burst. In the background, we see the tiny dome of the U.S. Capitol dwarfed by an armed tank rolling forward slowly. White shards and mist disrupt the space, and much larger figures pile into the middle ground. On the left, we see the square, stern face of a police officer and the back of a helmeted soldier in a tan uniform. They appear to face off against the figures on the right side of the composition. Three white civilians — a woman and two men — lean in, their bodies and faces impossibly close. And then, in the foreground, a shirtless Black man clutches the limp body of another brown-skinned man. The Black figure dominates the composition visually, and though his face is in profile his body tips towards us, pushing his fallen companion into our space. His jaw is set and calm, but we can see the energy rippling through his taut muscles. He is active and determined as he moves away from the compressed chaos behind him.

Given the attack on the Capitol by white supremacists just last week, the image of violence and confrontation on the National Mall is eerily familiar. What might surprise us, though, especially given the power and beauty of the central Black figure, is that this was painted in 1932 by a Japanese American artist, Eitaro Ishigaki. It is precisely this rupture that makes The Bonus March useful to us today, in the midst of our own political upheaval and racial reckoning. 

What can we, as Asian Americans, learn from this painting that crosses ethnic and racial lines? How might Ishigaki help us reflect on the difficulties and possibilities of Asian American and Black solidarity today? 

First, some historical context is helpful. In many ways, The Bonus March is typical of the Social Realist style that flourished in 1920s and 1930s America. Rejecting the extreme subjectivity of abstraction, many painters with progressive political views sought to depict the “masses” as solidly-built, no-nonsense workers who were being exploited by the capitalist system. These artists identified themselves as laborers, and they believed that their art could foster real and radical social change in America. Thus, in Ishigaki’s The Bonus March, we see workers facing off against police and the military against the backdrop of the national capitol. 

The title refers to a 1932 confrontation between a large group of now-unemployed and destitute World War I veterans and President Herbert Hoover. The veterans, Black and white, demanded that Congress redeem their “Bonus Certificates” early, given the financial straits of the Great Depression. Hoover refused and eventually ordered an army regiment, complete with tanks, to push the protesting veterans out of their makeshift shantytown.

As art historian ShiPu Wang argues, there are two things that make this painting somewhat unusual for its time. The first has to do with how the main Black figure is represented. As part of their commitment to economic equality, Social Realist artists also championed racial equality. However, most Social Realist depictions of African Americans in the 1920s and 1930s by white artists tended to fall back on the abolitionist trope of the noble but passive Black body in pain. For example, in his 1923 lithograph The Law is Too Slow, George Bellows depicts a muscular Black man chained to a tree stump and writhing in pain as a white mob stokes a fire at his feet. Similarly grotesque images can be seen in prints by Harry Sternberg, Abraham Jacobs, and John Stuert Curry in the 1930s. The focus tends to be on Black suffering and endurance, rather than Black agency in liberation. In Ishigaki’s painting, however, the Black figure twists out of the flattened, shattered background and pushes into the viewers’ own space. Unlike the brutalized, terrified Black men in many other politically progressive images, this man is on the move. His unmistakably dark skin shimmers like burnished bronze as he helps his companion and stares down government aggression.

The second thing that sets this painting apart is the identity of the artist. As mentioned earlier, Eitaro Ishigaki was a Japanese-born artist who emigrated to the United States in 1909 at the age of sixteen. He studied art in San Francisco and eventually moved to New York City where he was part of the group of leftist artists and intellectuals that founded the John Reed Club. Ishigaki’s own ethnic background meant that he could not become a naturalized citizen of the United States although he proudly considered himself to be an American. His adoption of the Social Realist style of painting was part of his claim to assimilation. And yet, his identification with the United States did not protect him from the deeply rooted racial inequalities that touched every part of American life. But rather than aligning himself with a white supremacist hierarchy, Ishigaki extended his belief in class solidarity to racial solidarity. 

In The Bonus March, he casts a Black man as the protagonist, perhaps recognizing their intertwined futures in the country. This is, on one level, a profoundly hopeful statement. Ishigaki sees the Black veteran and worker, doubly marginalized by class and race, as a worthy and potent leader in the fight for equality. Instead of depicting white laborers leading the charge on behalf of ethnic and racial minorities, Ishigaki imagines a truly radical restructuring of the social order.   

As a biracial Asian American woman, I find Ishigaki’s painting to be a helpful guide. In the wake of 2020’s protests for racial justice, renewed attention is being given to the tension and occasional outright animosity that often exists between Asian American and Black communities. The Bonus March provides a needed model of historical interminority solidarity. Ishigaki acknowledges the interconnectedness of Asian and Black futures and rejects a white supremacist framework that encourages interminority conflict. Even more compelling, Ishigaki resists the urge to center his own identity and instead chooses to recognize the agency rather than the victimhood of his Black comrades. In looking for models today of what Black and Asian American cooperation might look like, Ishigaki’s painting offers a challenge. As an artist and activist, Ishigaki is far from perfect. But his work helps us to ask some important questions. How might our cultural backgrounds shape — for good or ill — our initial response to this painting? What might it look like to leverage the privileges of Asian American identity in order to truly support justice and equity for Black Americans?

Painting by Eitaro Ishigaki, The Bonus March, 1932

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Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. As a biracial Japanese-white woman, she has navigated the joys and tensions of a hybrid identity. Elissa is currently Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Covenant College, in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. Her teaching and research focus on the intersections of race, gender, and representation, and explore the potential of art to model and encourage empathy. Website: http://elissa.weichbrodt.org | Instagram: @elissabrodt | Twitter: @elissabrodt