Flower pin
date: label: date made
content: 1942-1945
notes: label: Description
content: This corsage was made by June Shimizu, who was incarcerated with her sister, Tsuneyo Shimizu, at the Tule Lake and Topaz concentration camps. Both June and Tsuneyo took up the hobby of arts and crafts to occupy the large amounts of spare time that they had during their imprisonment. They, along with many other Japanese Americans who were incarcerated, took up a form of arts and crafts to express their discontent and feelings during imprisonment. The sisters started making beautiful corsages from whatever they could find. The dried up lake beds that many camps were built around provided a copious amount of shells. June and Tsuneyo would go scavenge the lake beds for materials. This corsage is made from those seashells, along with other common materials that they were able to find such as cardboard, ribbons, wire, string, and paper. These homemade corsages were able to capture the beauty and serenity that the artists were feeling, all the while using old, basic materials. The seashells are reminiscent of pearls, and shows how the Japanese American prisoners were able to persevere and find beauty in the little things.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Tule Lake
topic: label: Subject
content: World War II
label: related event
content: World War II
setName: label: See more items in
content: Military and Society: Armed Forces History, Japanese American
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dale Cawley
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2015.0210.06
label: accession number
content: 2015.0210
label: catalog number
content: 2015.0210.06
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pin
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glued/ pasted (back; front connector/connecting technique)
label: Physical Description
content: fabric (part: ribbon material)
label: Physical Description
content: tortoise shell (part: flowers material)
label: Physical Description
content: wire; paper; synthetic fibers (back material)
label: Physical Description
content: velvet; paper (part: leaves material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5.5 cm x 3.8 cm x 1.4 cm; 2 5/32 in x 1 1/2 in x 9/16 in