Artifacts of Loss: Crafting Survival in Japanese American Concentration Camps

Jane E. Dusselier

Published by Rutgers University Press 2008

Artifacts of Loss

Crafting Survival in Japanese American Concentration Camps

Jane E. Dusselier

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813546421

Overview
Contents

About this book

From 1942 to 1946, as America prepared for war, 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly interned in harsh desert camps across the American west.

In Artifacts of Loss, Jane E. Dusselier looks at the lives of these internees through the lens of their art. These camp-made creations included flowers made with tissue paper and shells, wood carvings of pets left behind, furniture made from discarded apple crates, gardens grown next to their housingùanything to help alleviate the visual deprivation and isolation caused by their circumstances. Their crafts were also central in sustaining, re-forming, and inspiring new relationships. Creating, exhibiting, consuming, living with, and thinking about art became embedded in the everyday patterns of camp life and helped provide internees with sustenance for mental, emotional, and psychic survival.

Dusselier urges her readers to consider these often overlooked folk crafts as meaningful political statements which are significant as material forms of protest and as representations of loss. She concludes briefly with a discussion of other displaced people around the globe today and the ways in which personal and group identity is reflected in similar creative ways.

Author / Editor information

Jane E. Dusselier is an assistant professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at Iowa State University. Her previously published works include Does Food Make Place? Food Protests in Japanese American Concentration Camps.

Reviews

"Dusselier has given us an excellent thick description of the ways that Japanese American prisoners of both generations used arts and crafts as tools of survival. Future camp studies will have to take her work into account."

— Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati

"This is a remarkable page-turner of a book. Beyond the usual scholarly audiences from such disciplines as history and material culture, public historians, psychologists, art therapists, and anyone interested in the intersection of art, loss, and agency will find this book a meaningful read."

— Journal of American Ethnic History

"Dusselier has given us an excellent thick description of the ways that Japanese American prisoners of both generations used arts and crafts as tools of survival. Future camp studies will have to take her work into account."

— Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati

"This is a remarkable page-turner of a book. Beyond the usual scholarly audiences from such disciplines as history and material culture, public historians, psychologists, art therapists, and anyone interested in the intersection of art, loss, and agency will find this book a meaningful read."

— Journal of American Ethnic History

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1. Visual Accounts of Loss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Remaking Inside Places Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
3. Re-territorializing Outside Spaces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
4. Making Connections Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
5. Mental Landscapes of Survival Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
6. Contemporary Legacies of Loss Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201

Language: English
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 218
Illustrations
- Other: 53

eBook

Published: December 1, 2008
ISBN: 9780813546421