MY GRANDMOTHER'S FATHER @ THE SMITHSONIAN

I thought it was very necessary to make this post, even though I don't normally use my blog as a "blog."

 The above photograph is my grandmother in Colorado. She is standing in the small town of Lamar, close to the Kansas border - the site of the Amache camp - one of the 10 camps that existed in the United States (other camps existed elsewhere) during the the Second World War to intern Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals living on the west coast of the United States (there were also camps in the US that interned Japanese descendants living in South America). My Grandmother was interned at Amache when she was a teenager. This photograph is from a camp re-union. Later, while I was an undergraduate student, I took her back to the camp with my mother, following the same train lines that she would have taken, and photographed the journey. (Those are stored away somewhere at my mother's house in California). The reason why I am writing this now is that my Great Grandfather, who I never met, who died in camp, had built an obutsudan (a Buddhist shrine) while in camp. Currently on view at the Smithsonian in Washington DC is an exhibition featuring objects that were made in camp by internees. This obutsudon is currently on exhibit there. If you happen to go, look for the name "Kawase."

The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946

March 5, 2010 – January 30, 2011

http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2010/gaman/