Youth Hi-Lite: Woodworking at Minidoka

Youth Hi-Lite: Woodworking at Minidoka

by Peter Pflug-Tilton, Friends of Minidoka Intern

Introduction: 

This past summer, Friends of Minidoka hired two interns from two different geographic communities to create online exhibits that illustrate critical themes, messages, and stories about the individual incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp during World War II. The exhibits showcase photos, oral history interviews, and artifacts from Minidoka NHS’s collection. 

After some research, Peter Pflug-Tilton, a student at the University of Washington, decided to focus his exhibit on woodworking and the significance of the items created. His exhibit examines the barracks and conditions at Minidoka that required incarcerated Japanese Americans to create furniture for their belongings. He also explores the arts and crafts that Japanese Americans created from spare wood laying around the concentration camp or greasewood found beyond the residential barracks.

Peter’s exhibit will be available online this spring, so stay tuned! 

-Camille Daw, Friends of Minidoka Program and Outreach Manager

When I started looking on Densho to help brainstorm topics for my exhibit, I came across several articles on woodworking. I became curious about the topic while reading about George Nakashima and his friendship with Gentaro Hikogawa, who were both widely considered master woodworkers. As I read other articles and sources, I soon became aware of just how common it was for incarcerees to craft their own art and furniture. Items were made as gifts, admired at art shows, and used to improve the spartan apartments they were assigned. To me, this pointed to the resilience of incarcerees under incredibly difficult and disheartening circumstances. 

I learned that woodworking had many different uses. Out of necessity, woodworking was used to remedy unacceptable living conditions of the barracks. Some of the additions to the apartments were extraordinarily creative, such as built-ins for storage and rolling furniture to quickly rearrange rooms. I also read, and heard, many accounts of how artistic woodworking served to redirect focus away from hardship and negative rumination. 

With all of these uses for woodworking to possibly discuss, it was tough to narrow the focus. I ended up touching on all the uses I listed above, first starting with an overview of the utility of woodworking in all the camps and then focusing on individuals who had a personal connection to woodworking while incarcerated at Minidoka. 

At times, it could also be a challenge to find pictures to match specific stories. Ideally, each photo of a crafted piece would have the story of the maker to go along with it, or vice versa, but I often had to settle for not having both; the photos of greasewood are not actual pieces that belonged to George Nakata or Kyo Koike and I had to make do with the small selection of photos of greasewood available for use. 

Like searching for photos, searching the archives for certain leads, such as information on George Nakashima’s model apartment, took time and patience; there was no mention of it in his written biography or in a video documentary about his career, which was a badly damaged VHS that had periodic picture-warping. I considered it a success when I finally found an announcement of the model apartment in an edition of the Minidoka Irrigator newspaper; I used the date of the announcement to find a WRA report which included a lengthy description of the model apartment and even a copy of the plans. 

Being located in Seattle and therefore, far from the Minidoka artifacts collection, presented another challenge, which was not being able to see objects in person to study or photograph for the exhibit. With some help from Friends of Minidoka and the NPS, it was possible to work around this by gaining access to the spreadsheet of artifacts in the collection; I ended up using a photo of a wooden name sign, which was kindly sent by Alexander Kim, the curator for Minidoka, to include in my exhibit. A special thanks to Alexander and to Camille Daw for making that possible.

Paul Tomita’s Family Barrack Sign, Courtesy of the National Park Service

During the research process I learned about much more than just the practical uses of woodworking and the items created, but also the challenges and pressures being put on emotional health and on relationships as well, which I felt was important to include. I remember listening to interviews with George Nakata on his memories of greasewood gathering in the desert and connecting it to other reading I’d done which mentioned the importance of recreation for families at a time when relationships were being tested by the organization of the camps. My aim with this exhibit was to use the topic of woodworking as a vehicle to discuss many different challenges and experiences at Minidoka and the other concentration camps. 

I am very grateful I had the opportunity to work on this research project for Friends of Minidoka. I felt going into this project – and still feel – that this moment in our nation’s history is under explained and it feels very worthwhile to be a part of the effort to research and share these stories.