GOTO Angiro
Born: 10 October 1870 – Died: 14 January 1942
Particulars:
Angiro was born in Gifu Prefecture in Japan. He arrived at Lucinda Point, Queensland, Australia in 1896 aboard the Sendai Maru. He was 26 years old. He never re-visited Japan. He lived in various locations in northern Queensland – three and a half years at Ripple Creek, two years in Macknade, two and a half years at Lucinda Point, twenty-two years at Victoria Mill in Ingham, and then eleven years in Tolga, four years in Edmonton, where he was a single man working as a farmer when the Pacific War broke out. When Angiro was arrested, he handed over 3 pounds 10 shillings to the District Finance Officer in Meanjin / Brisbane. He also had one portmanteau or travel bag, and a bundle of belongings. He was sent to Hay Internment Camp in New South Wales, but was admitted to hospital two days later and died 11 days after that, aged 71. The cause of his death was not recorded in official documents held at the National Archives of Australia. His grave is in the Japanese Cemetery in Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.
–Mayu Kanamori
More info:
ON Marx
Artist/s Statement:
In 1896, at age 26 (the then average marrying age for Japanese males), Angiro Goto left Gifu, Japan, for Queensland, Australia. The next 30 years were spent in the hazardous rough-and-tumble of raw sugar production, from cutting cane on the plantation to milling cane at the Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Victoria Mill. At the time of his arrest in early 1942, he was a farmer and still single at age 71. While awaiting transport to the internment camp, he was hospitalised, and by 14 January, dead.
I imagined Angiro shortened his Japanese name to ‘Giro’, meaning second son, and discarded An’ (‘apricot’ or ‘slow’) either to start anew or avoid hearing his name butchered by non-Japanese speakers.
Artist Bio:
ON Marx, a Jack and Jill of all trades, and one half of the Los Angeles based Asian American art duo, The DisComfort Women, which would not have come into being were it not for the playful, freeing influence of artists such as the late Yong Soon Min and filmmakers such as the late Chick Strand.