History Matters: Children's Art Education inside the Japanese American Internment Camp.

Over the last 5 years, my research has involved collecting information about artwork created by children in the Japanese American Internment Camps of World War II (WWII). A few months ago, I was re-reading Bolin, Blandy, and Congdon's text, Remembering Others: Making Invisible Histories of Art Education Visible (2000), and was struck by Paul Bolin's introduction: "It is important that the past be looked at from multidimensional perspectives. Single viewpoints do not enable us to see the complexities found in both the past and the present" (p. 9). Bolin's statement struck me because of the many avenues I have had to travel for a more thorough understanding of what I sought. The most striking are the diverse standpoints on the camps, the schools in camp, and the complex and varied experiences of the internees. In addition, I am struck by the parallel contradictions I continue to observe in educational philosophies and economic limitations that impact classroom activities and opportunities. In my review of the relevant documents, conversations with camp survivors and their families, as well as former teachers In the camps, I heard the refrain of conflict between an educational ideal and the physical, financial, and social limitations that dismantled that ideal. The reality of education and, more specifically, art education within the confines of the War Relocation Authority (WRA) internment camps reflected uninformed administrative mandates, extreme financial limitations, and cultural bias from multiple standpoints.When I began my research, my method of historic investigation involved reading through numerous "Relocation Center Final Reports," boxes of loose papers, and handwritten diaries made available by museums, history centers, and private collections. I analyzed and documented children's artworks, listened to oral histories, surveyed blogs, and visited each camp to document my impressions. From this, I appraised the merits of the materials based upon authorship, their designated purpose, and my focus for this study. My intention in this article is to describe the contributing influences on art education within the confines of the WWII Japanese American Camp schools. My hope is to continue this study for a more thorough understanding of history and its implications on our contemporary condition, the limitations of progressive education and other curricular mandates, as well as social engineering in the schools. Although I have part, I know I do not have the whole story, and I will never have the entire story. Flowever, I have a few ideas about the limitations and outcomes of art education in the camps, and I am compelled to continue.A Case for Looking at the Children's ArtworkA good deal has been written about the adult artmaking in the Internment Camps. Delphine Hirasuna's (2005) recent publication, The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946, illustrated the contributions of many adult artists such as Chiura Obata, Hisako FHibi, Mini Okubo, Isamu Noguchi, and Henry Sugimoto. In addition, the 1952 publication of Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in our War Relocation Camps by Allen Eaton and Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps (1987) by Deborah Gesensway and Mindy Roseman were excellent collections of the arts and crafts made by adults in camp. However, very little has been written about the children's artmaking and art education. I had to ask: what information is available about the children's artmaking?When I came across a vast collection of children's artworks from the camp at Rowher, Arkansas, I learned that the Rohwer art teacher, Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel, had collected and saved much of the student work from her classes. She knew that the tumultuous lives of these children might result in the loss of their art, and she wanted to share it with future generations. As I worked my way through the boxes of tempera paintings, printmaking, calligraphy, drawings, and posters, I was struck by the strict stylization of much of the work. …