Gaman - enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity

In 1942 120,000 Japanese Americans, mostly from the west coast, were imprisoned in internment camps. These camps were in desolate, mainly dessert areas, in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and other western states. The internees were allowed to bring only the belongings that they could carry. They were housed in barracks of six one room units, each unit shared by two families and furnished only by cots. The internees started making needed furnishings from scrap wood and other materials found in the camps. Eventually they started making art and crafts from the different materials available in each camp: shells, slate, scrap wood, manzanita, ironwood, mesquite, onion sack string, pipe cleaners, wire, rocks, toothpicks, old clothes and electrical insulation board. They reused paper and melted down scrap metal to make scissors and chisels. The internees used arts and crafts as a way to escape from a situation that they couldn't control.
The book contains a history of the camps and many black and white photographs of life in the camps. 150 color photographs of the art and crafts are included. The art is folksy, beautiful, utilitarian, cultural. Looking at these photographs you get a sense of the spirit of a people who had had almost everything taken from them and were enduring the best that they could.
The author is third generation Japanese American whose family had been interned at Jerome, Arkansas. (before she was born) Many of the art works were collected from her family and friends' families.
My previous knowledge of the Japanese American internment camps comes from the book[Farewell to Manzanar]. This was a favorite book in junior high school. We never learned this part of American history in school. I feel inspired now to re-read that book ---it's been around 35 years since my last reading.
Highly recommended. ( )