Author Delphine Hirasuna on art
and craft in World War II
Japanese-American internment camps
i n t e r v i e w b y
Ju lie Han us
p h o t o g r a p h y b y
Terry Heffernan
WESTON
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IN STR U C TIO N S
TO A L L PERSO N S OF
JAPANESE
A N C E S T R Y
In 1942, public notices
like this informed
ethnic Japanese that
they must leave their
homes. They were given
a week to turn them-
selves in, bringing only
what they could carry.
Л DECADE A G O , D ELPHINE HIRASUNA PULLED
a dusty box from her parents’ garage.
Inside, she found a peculiar assortment
o f objects: a small bird pin, a cracked shell
brooch, some trinkets from Italy w here
her father, a second-generation Japanese-
Am erican had served during W orld W ar
II. She realized that she w as looking at a
box o f things packed “ from camp.”
“ Cam p” is how Hirasuna, born in
1946, grew up know ing o f her fam ily’s
internment. H er parents never spoke o f
it directly, only as a reference point in
time: before camp, after camp. T h e sub-
ject was too painful, she explains. Presi-
dent Franklin R oosevelt’s E xecutive
O rder 9066, signed on February 19,
1942, began a process that uprooted ap-
proxim ately 120,000 people—90 percent
,
o f the ethnic Japanese population o f
the U nited States, two-thirds o f them
Am erican citizens—and ultim ately m oved them into
10 relocation centers, hastily built in rem ote, inhospi-
table terrain. T h ey could bring only w hat they could
carry. V oluntary evacuation soon became frantic
forced removal.
Hirasuna liked the bird pin, so she kept it out. One
day K it Hinrichs, a friend and designer w ith whom she
has collaborated on books, asked her about its origins.
(The pair also collaborate on ©Issue, an online journal
o f business and design.) W hen she told him, he asked if
there w ere other objects—and suggested that the art and
craft o f the Japanese-American internment camps
might make for an interesting next book. N either could
have predicted just how fruitful the subject w ould be.
O ver the past 10 years, Hirasuna has uncovered a
trove o f amazing w ork. H er fam ily and friends helped
spread w ord o f her project, w hile museum curators and
archive directors eagerly lent their support. Though
tools and materials w ere scarce in the camps, these ob-
jects seem to know no boundaries: elegant stone tea-
pots, precisely w oven baskets, im peccably detailed fur-
niture, delicate shell jew elry. It w as an explosion o f
making, in service to both physical and emotional
needs. Hirasuna calls it the art
o f gam an
—a Japanese
w ord she translates as “ to bear the seem ingly unbear-
able w ith patience and dignity.”
In 2005, she published
T he A r t o f Gaman: A rts a n d
C rafts from the Japanese Am erican Internm ent Camps
19 4 2-19 4 6
(T en Speed Press), a collaboration w ith H in-
richs and photographer T erry H effernan. It is an enrap-
turing book, equal parts contextual narrative and strik-
ing photography. T he book has inspired several
exhibits, and this year, “ T h e A rt o f Gaman” is at the
Smithsonian Am erican A rt M useum ’s R enw ick Gal-
lery. T h e show runs through January 30. Hirasuna
spoke to us from her San Francisco home.
Over the past decade, you’ve helped bring attention to
an entire genre of American craft—inspired by a bird
pin. When did you realize this was more than a book?
W h en I started, I had no idea w hat I was going to
find; I wasn’t even sure that I w ould have enough to
make a book. M y relatives and m y parents’ friends
started helping, and people started showing up w ith
these amazing objects. Oftentim es they w ould hand
them over still wrapped in newspapers from 1945.
A fte r the w ar, when the camps closed, I’m sure these
objects w ere very painful reminders o f w hat had hap-
pened, so people just did what m y parents did, w hich
was stick them in the garage or the attic.
Then a friend called and said her friend’s mother had
died, and that her grandfather had made some things
out o f stone. She asked if I w anted to see them. T h e
slate inkwells and the stone teapots in the book—those
w ere all made b y one man. I knew that he w as a bona
048 american craft dec/jann
