Culture within. Entrenched. All around you. Part of you. You move within its values. It’s the mindsets whose ideas have conquered. The wars that weakened, that strengthened, that shaped. It’s the cultures that fought to stay, the ones whose culture screamed loudly for their place. The ones that learn the American way. The rest must prevail. For the good of the union. For the good of the people. The American way of life must remain hard. So that whoever arrives must go through a rigorous scale that measures the character’s weight. The way must be learned. Character revealed, character strengthen. Now you are able to provide, to fight for your pie, to look at the flag with pride. It ain’t fair but neither is life. The American way ain’t about making it easy for you but once you make it we take care of you. Bless the American way.

Japanese Edo Period and Samurai Culture inspired painting. The Sakoku was the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate. For a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were limited, and nearly all foreign nationals were banned. During this period of isolation, Japan cultivated cultural touchstones that persist to this day. This pericod was difficult for the lower classes. The Great Wave by Hokusai (represented in the blues of the painting)—haiku poetry, kabuki drama, wood-block prints, the tea ceremony, landscape gardening, and the cultivation of bonsai trees—date to this period of Japanese history.