Objects can tell us a lot about a story from the past. Take a look at a few items that might have been brought to Amache from the perspective of a family who lived there. What do they tell us about daily life at Amache? 

These flowers are from my family’s flower shop.  We were finally allowed to leave Amache, and we moved to Denver.  My father grew some of my mother’s favorite flowers and sold them at our store in Denver.

Bouquet of flowers made of shells with pink flowers and buds, green wire stem, paper mache (?) leaves.

From 1942 to 1946, more that 110,000 Japanese-Americans living in California were interned at camps in the western United States including at Granada, Colorado during WWII. This tragic episode of American and Colorado history is represented in the core exhibition, "Colorado Stories" at the History Colorado museum.

Jean Higashi and her sister Gail Tamaribuchi were both at Amache as children. Their family had been displaced along with many from the San Francisco/Oakland area and they spent two years at Amache and experienced life in an internment camp at the ages of 2 and 6? with Jeanne being the elder. Jeanne remembers the camp but Gail was too young to remember internment. When the family was released they moved to the north area of Denver where predominately Jewish families resided and as they expressed, felt accepted and among friends by the Jewish community of Denver who had great empathy for the plight of Japanese-Americans after internment. Japanese-Americans continued to face prejudice and discrimination well after WWII.
Along with the photographs and written documentation about the Amache internment camp from the sisters' return reunion visit to Amache in 1998, an extraordinary group of handmade jewelry made at Amache was donated by Jeanne Higashi. The jewelry is referred to as the "Art of Gaman." Gaman is a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity." The term Gaman is generally understood to indicate perseverance, patience, tolerance, or self-denial. Handcrafts and artworks made from found materials at internment camps are a testimony to the perseverance and grace with which those who were interned endured their hardships.

The jewelry are in the form of pins (some with fasteners and some without) and are made of painted wood, shells, and pipe cleaners in shapes of birds, flowers, and whimsical figures as well as painted landscape scenery on small flat wooden substrates. There is one industrially made metal pin from their reunion visit to Amache in 1998. Of the handmade items, similar wooden painted bird pins were shown in the traveling Smithsonian exhibition titled,"The Art of Gaman: Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946," and shown from March 5, 2010 -- June 30, 2011. The bird pins appears to be possibly the work of Himeko Fukuhara and/or Kazako Matsumoto both interned at Amache as shown in the exhibition. Another particularly poignant object given by Jeanne Higashi is a white cotton handkerchief with a printed design of a blue star with rays that reads, "Blue Star Mothers, Amache, CO," to recognize women interned at Amache who had sons serving in the US military during WWII.

Flower Pin

History Colorado

Flower Pin*

My father wanted to pack his camera, but that was against the rules.

Camera, Zeiss Ikon Box Tengor

My father packed a hammer.  I didn’t understand why that was so important.  But when we got to Amache he used it to build a shelf for all my treasures near my bed.

Hammer

My little brother carried this baseball everywhere.  He was excited when we started playing baseball at Amache.  He wants to be just like Joe DiMaggio, his favorite player, when he grows up.

Colorado Rockies baseball.
Inscription: Rawlings/official ball/national league/pres//cushioned cork center/ ro-n

Baseball, Colorado Rockies

My mother found this coffee can in the garbage and kept it beneath my little brother’s bed. He was scared of our new home, and didn’t like to go to the bathroom alone at night.

These geta (sandals) were made by my father out of scrap wood. They helped keep my feet clean when using the latrine.

My little brother loves this carp kite. Every year on Boy’s Day (now called Children's Day), May 5th, we hang it outside to show that a happy and strong boy is living inside.

My mother brought these bowls for our meals. She is such a good cook. My favorite thing she made were onigiri, or rice balls. Her cooking was much better than what we ate at the Mess Hall.

Standards for Taking Personal Objects to Amache