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Tell us how this quilt came about?
We received a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. So the director of JASEB [Japanese American Seri vices of the East Bay] asked if my class would be willing to make it, and I said sure. Then found out they really didn't want to do it.
Tell us about that.
They didn't want to do it because: "What for?" Then it brought back too many bad memories, things they didn't want to think about. They just weren't willing to work on it.
How did you convince them to work on it?
When we received the grant, part of it was that there would be a video made of the process of the quilt making. So, I called a meeting of a few influential people in the group, and had a meeting with the director and the video producer. The video producer said—she's a Sansei—and said, "I believe in the project. I don’t think I am going to make any money on it. I think I am going to go in the hole. But, I believe in it, and I really want to do it.” So, after they heard that, they said, "Wow, you get a Sansei who wants to do this, maybe we can do it too." That's how we got started!
Why is it significant that a Sansei would want to do this?
They are more vocal, a lot more so than the Nisei. The Nisei just put it back in our minds. The same thing with the reparations. It was the Sansei who brought it about, not the Niseis.
Can you describe the quilt for us?
I'll start with the background. The background is a traditional patchwork pattern called "Road to California." I started—we started here with blue, and it’s made of old Kimonos. Blue for the Pacific Ocean our parents had to cross. The beige is for what it was like in camp, all the dust. Down here, is rosy and pinky, because that's how life is for us now, it's very comfortable. But, we have some gray spots here to remind us that we need to preserve everybody’s civil liberty.
Then we started out with these blocks. This one is a little red Kimono that nearly every little girl our age had.
Then this one is from, if you know the book Farewell to Manzanar, she talks about breaking the dishes rather than selling it. That's what this is. The background is a traditional pattern called, "Broken Dishes."
Here is a map to show you where all the camps where. Those in red are where the relocation centers were. Those in purple are where the fathers were sent in the FBI sweep.
Then we come here. I say that a lot of the women were young at the time, and had these bangs, just like this. So, I wanted to have one of those. So, we have this little girl, sitting on her suitcase, waiting.
This is a typical scene. This is actually Topaz. With the guard tower, the flag, the barbed wire that went around the fence.
Then this comes because of Minuokubo. We took a lot of the images from books, because we said, "We're not artists." We needed images. We had a young graphic artist help us, and she picked this one because we could only take what we could carry, what we could buy was from catalogues. This came out of a Sears-Roebuck, so you find three people of different generations, wearing the same blouse.
Then here is a typical room with a partition. Here's a girl sitting here. I think she's actually a writer. This is the typical potbelly stove. Then separated here.
This is one of a little girl crying because she is lost. All the barracks look alike, and so it is not unusual to get lost. Then I have here—this happens to be the one I made, that's why I'm talking—I wanted to show a mess hall that we had to go to get our meals.
The square is called windblown square, and it shows a mother protecting her child from all that dust.
This is the gold star that was given to a mother who lost her son in action. Very often you would find a blue star in a window, for forty-second boys. Blue star meaning they are in service, the gold is when they were killed in action. The gold star was given to the mother. This is another typical patchwork design called "Attic Window." This one comes from a book, it’s a photograph, and it just is Heart Mountain. It just shows a couple looking at the outside.
This one, we called it a hanten, which is half a kimono. This is the way we dress these days, I teach it in my class, how we adapt. This is made of denim. But it would be a kimono that we could wear as jackets today.
Then there are all these words around here, which will show you from the beginning, from December 7th, 1941, clear across all the things that happened. Then the bottom is the end of war. The two sides have words that were of particular significance to us. Then there are two Japanese words, gaman, and then, shigataganai. Those are words we thought we had to have in there.
Can you talk more about the square you made?
We all signed. Actually I wanted to make one of long lines, but that got a little difficult. So, I opted for this. On the video I say, "To me, it’s a metaphor of not just being lost, but losing friends, losing school, losing all your jobs, work.” Then I thought I should have put in loss of freedom.
Do you recall personally seeing any of those gold stars around camp?
Yes. The one who made this, it was her brother, who was a dear friend of my brother. Then, there is a, let's see, she worked on this one. Her fiancee was killed in action.
Can you explain some of the words embroidered into the quilt?
Issei, this is the first generation, that is, the first generation that came to this country. Nisei, is the second. I'm a Nisei. Then Sansei is the next generation, which is ichi, ni, san [1, 2, 3]. Then here is a Yonsei down here, we don't say it "shi," we call it Yonsei. That's the next generation. Then we have Kibeis. Kibeis are those who were born in this country, sent as children to Japan to study, and then returned. So returned to this country, is Kibei.
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