b'blood has been shed in [its] name. 18In this heterogeneous visual schema, the artists divided sense of self and ongoing struggle with cultural identification extend to a claustrophobic vision of interaction between diverse peoples and societies that Makuuchi likens to a chaotic play of masks. 19The artists concern with how identities imposed by belief systems repress and divide people by alien-ating them from themselves and one another is balanced by the titular use of the phrase ancestors demand voicesavowing how cultural traditions may also constitute a source of empowerment. Masks and masked figures are also a foreboding presence in postwar paintings and prints by Yasuo Kuniyoshi (18891953), who had long drawn on imagery and costuming from Italian Commedia dellArte, Japanese Noh Theater, and the circus for his figurative iconography. Although much older than the other artists in this discussionand a resident of New York City since 1910this well-known migr painter, printmaker, photographer, and teacher was summarily classified as an enemy alien during the Second World War. Placed under suspicion of disloyalty due to his Japanese heritage, the artist was required to obey a curfew and saw his freedom to travel without permission severely curtailed. Kuniyoshis striking images like the 1946-47 encaustic painting I Wear a Mask Today (generally considered autobiographical) and the 1948 lithograph Mask (fig. 55) depict figures holding or donning masks to conceal the bearers face. 20Kuniyoshis increasing use of this ambiguous metaphor or persona during a stressful period in the wake of the war suggests a conflicted yet self-conscious effort to cloak lingering un-ease over his dismaying experience. 21Co daArtists like Munio Makuuchi ultimately underscore the capacity of art practice to bring affectivity to social memory and historic knowledge. Their imaginative interventions grapple with and impart understandings of past events that long remain unresolved and charged by traumatic awareness of displacement, societal rupture, loss, personal distress, and racial and ethnic enmity. This workwhen reactivated and brought together in dynamic dialogue with other artists of Japanese heritage in Americais reflective of kinship in adversity while also registering the divisive impact of foreign wars in the domestic realm. More-over, in the present atmosphere of blatant official antipathy singling out certain minority groups, the themes and concerns behind such art remain inescapably relevant, effectively moving beyond the specific, time-bound circumstances in which it was made to engage with the resurgence of racial politics in this nation.FIGUREYasuo Kuniyoshi. Mask, 1948. Lithograph on cream-colored wove paper, 17 x 13 / inches. Smith College Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Barr Jr. in memory of Ruth Wedgwood Kennedy, SC 1969.20139'