
Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Masako Iwawaki Koga (96.14.9)
Community Culture3
Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Masako Iwawaki Koga (96.14.9)
Japanese American National Museum, Gifts of Masako Iwawaki Koga (2003.37.2, 2003.37.6, 2003.37.11, 96.14.3)
The wooden pins pictured were made by Masako’s grandmother Tsuya Mukai while incarcerated at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Tsuya sent them to Tule Lake, California, where her daughter Toshiko and granddaughters Yaeko and Masako were living.
The tiny decorative geta (Japanese footwear) were made by Masako while incarcerated at Tule Lake. Notice how detailed they are.
Many crafts emerged from America’s concentration camps as Japanese American inmates found ways to expend their creative energy. The fact of their barbed-wire confinement did little to suppress the Japanese Americans’ desire to bring some normalcy to their mundane camp lives.
Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Masako Iwawaki Koga (96.14.6, 96.14.7)
These are two report cards belonging to 11-year-old Masako. They are from her time spent at Tule Lake Segregation Center.
Masako attended school in English, studying subjects such as language arts, arithmetic, social studies, and arts. She also studied Japanese, which is why one of these report cards is in Japanese.
Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Masako Iwawaki Koga (96.14.10)
Pictured at the far right is Masako Murakami. She was about 11 years old when this photograph was taken at the Tule Lake Segregation Center in California. She is shown here with friends who lived on the same block as she did.
Japanese American National Museum, Gift of Masako Iwawaki Koga (96.14.9)
Read this note once again. Masako was born in 1934 and received this letter in 1945 as she was leaving Tule Lake. If Masako spent four years incarcerated, as is indicated in this note, she would have been incarcerated in America’s concentration camps from approximately age 7 to 11. Now Imagine yourself at that age.
Masako attended school, did crafts, and made many friends, as evidenced by the autographs in her book. It is clear that she was a young person who made the best of her situation.