The couple at their wedding
Image by national museum of american history
Call me a cynic or a dried-out old historian, but I don’t usually expect to find romance amongst my collections. Old uniforms, firearms, and insignia aren’t fertile ground for stories of first loves and engagements. Then I came across some objects on the history of Japanese Americans during WWII. They were a set of lovingly hand-crafted pins and were clearly made for someone’s sweetheart. My curiosity got the better of me and I had to find out more. Who made them? Who were they for? Did the pressures of living in the camps bring them together or push them apart?
May Asaki had just turned 22 when she and her family were forced to leave their home in California and relocate to Jerome, an internment camp in Arkansas. She’d had plans to go to Hollywood and become a costume designer. But instead she found herself behind barbwire with little to do but survive and care for her family. Her mother, only 48 years old, had passed away soon after arriving at the camp, leaving May as the oldest of 11 siblings. She tried her hand as a receptionist, a nurse’s assistant, and finally a clerk in the camp hospital supply room. It was there she first met Paul Ishimoto.
Read the rest of the story on the blog blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/2013/02/surviva…