Resilience of Japanese internees seen in ‘Contested Histories’ in LA – Whittier Daily News

My travel last Sunday by rail to meet two friends in Little Tokyo to watch the Dodgers game at a bar was mentioned here in passing on Wednesday. Perhaps you’d like to hear about my side trip.

After transferring at Union Station from Metrolink to light rail, I arrived at the Little Tokyo station about 45 minutes before our meet-up time. The Japanese American National Museum (100 N. Central Ave.) is across the street. I thought I might as well see what was new.

Typically, admission is $16 for adults, or $9 for those 62 and older. But that day, due to a craft show inside, admission was free. Can’t beat that.

“Contested Histories: Preserving and Sharing a Community History” is one current exhibit. The backstory is fascinating.

In the waning days of World War II, a man named Allen Hendershott Eaton, an expert on American folk art, visited five of the American concentration camps that held Japanese Americans, curious about the creative activity by inmates.

Astonished by what he found, Eaton published a book of photographs in 1952 — “Beauty Behind Barbed Wire” — and was later given many of the artworks. In 2015, long after his 1962 death, the entire set of art and artifacts was put up for auction.

The Japanese American community rallied to oppose the public sale of these artifacts. Actor George Takei was among them. The auction was canceled. The objects, stored unlabeled in cardboard boxes, ended up with the museum, which has done national outreach to talk to camp survivors to crowdsource information on the objects and their creators.

On display are paintings, fine woodworking and metalwork, and more, along with personal stories, where known, arranged by the camp where they originated.

My eye was caught by two watercolors by Estelle Ishigo, in which she paints scenes at Heart Mountain in Wyoming, where she was held.

RELATED: Years ago, Wyoming wilderness became home for Pomona Japanese American internees

In one, internees go about their day outside the simple wooden barracks, set amid dirt roads, laundry strung on lines. In a night scene, figures are bundled up against the cold, walking through the snow and converging on one long barracks, windows aglow, chimneys emitting smoke, promising warmth within.

Remarkably, Ishigo was a White woman who had married a Japanese American man and who volunteered to be incarcerated along with him rather than be separated. Isn’t that something?

Other works might be more to your own taste. Time permitted only a quick visit. But “Contested Histories,” which opened Oct. 19 and closes Jan. 5, is a window into the daily lives and creative spirt of people whose own spirits were tested.

Book report

My talk Tuesday night in Pomona, sponsored by the Historical Society, drew 18 people, a pretty good number for a reading by a local newspaper scribe. Virtually everyone who came bought one or more of my books, so from a personal finance standpoint it was a raging success.

During the Q&A, a woman said she enjoyed when I wrote about day trips, especially ones involving transit. That was something I used to do frequently, I replied. In fact, upon meeting me in person, many readers would say: “I like when you write about your Metrolink trips.”

These days, with so much news going uncovered in the IE, telling you about a pleasure trip of mine to L.A. by transit or car might come across as indulgent or beside the point, which is why I largely stopped.

But it could be that I over-corrected.

So, now and then I’ll tell you about somewhere I went — see the item above. After all, it might be something you’d want to see yourself. If not, you can be an armchair traveler.

Organ notes

Back in February a church organ concert in Claremont led to a column. In what you might consider a belated follow-up, here are details about two upcoming chances to hear church organs apart from worship services.

First is a Halloween-themed organ concert at Riverside’s First United Methodist Church of Christ, 4845 Brockton Ave., at 7 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 26). It’s free, but a goodwill offering will be collected to help maintain the organ.

According to the publicity, Robert Phillips will perform “a ‘thrilling’ number by Michael Jackson, a ‘chilling’ gothic toccata and a ‘distilling’ of TV and movie themes. Of course there will be Ghoultide Carols and special guests. Costumes admired!” I admire the church’s spirit.

Then on Nov. 1, Pomona’s Pilgrim Congregational Church, 600 N. Garey Ave., presents one of its occasional silent film screenings with organ accompaniment. This will be an early John Ford western, “3 Bad Men,” set during the Dakota land rush after the Civil War.