Human Flower Project


Orrington, MAINE USA

flag flower bed
Murrieta, CALIFORNIA USA

parker basket thumb
Princeton, MAINE USA

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Hard Corsages—Gaman


Delphine Hirasuna explores how the human spirit flowered behind barbed wire.


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Shell-flower pin with roses and lily of the valley

made at a U.S. Japanese Internment Camp

Reprinted with permission from The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts

from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946


Copyright © 2005 by Delphine Hirasuna, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA

Photo: Terry Heffernan

When Americans hear “concentration camp,” we tend to think of Germany and Poland—not Topaz, Utah, or—for that matter—Guantanamo Bay.

Delphine Hirasuna, a California designer and author, forces a more honest reflection. Her book The Art of Gaman presents a close, exquisite study of objects made in U.S. concentration camps—by the Japanese-Americans imprisoned in the racist panic after Pearl Harbor was bombed, Dec. 7, 1941.  More than 100,000 men, children, and women of Japanese ancestry were quickly rounded up. “Allowed only what they could carry, they were given just a few days to settle their affairs and report to assembly centers. Businesses were lost, personal property was stolen or vandalized, and lives were shattered.”

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Perimeter of Japanese internment camp, Tule Lake

Photo: Special Collections, Univ. of Utah

Bereft and jailed in remote spots like Rohwer, Arkansas,  they came to rely on “gaman,” a quality that Hirasuna translates as “enduring what seems unbearable with dignity and grace.” And here are 150 pieces of evidence.

Hirasuna explores both the facts and the psychology of camp life through articles the prisoners made—woodcarvings, paintings, embroidery and many exquisite “floral” pins created with shells and glue. Delphine generously has written to us that most of these shell-flower pieces came from the internment camps at Tule Lake, California, and Topaz, Utah. 

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“ title=” art of gaman”>The Art of Gaman


by Delphine Hirasuna

“Both were built over dry lakebeds in desert areas.  Internees discovered that millions of shells of all sizes and shapes were scattered all over the ground and buried in layers more (than) a foot deep. People scooped them up, sorted them into sizes, bleached them, painted them and turned them into an array of objects including many types of flowers, butterflies, cartoon characters….”

The workmanship and aesthetic delicacy of these pieces are stunning. But what we find most moving is their faithfulness; using shells, the makers strove to depict not “flowers” in some pretty generic way but lilies of the valley, roses, violas, as exactly as possible. For isn’t “dignity” really the consequence of integrity?

Delphine writes that shell flowers, made with found materials, were inexpensive, therefore possible, even in these punishing circumstances. “Also, the floral shell pins satisfied the desire to have corsages and floral displays for weddings and funerals. In the desert, flowers and vegetation were extremely scarce, so people improvised and, I suspect, chose as inspiration the flowers they loved back home.”

It was possible, through makeshift flowers, to honor both the memory of the past and, as life went oddly on, the occasions of a horribly restricted present.

In this interview with curators from the Japanese American Museum, Hirasuna further explains the impetus behind her book and the process of bringing it together—not easy, since many objects made in the camps were too fragile to have survived; many more, considered “busy work,” were abadoned. Hirasuna hopes that The Art of Gaman will draw more such objects out of attics into the light, as revelations of fortitude and culture.

“When someone was really down people would band together and bring over something to beautify the person’s barrack—a carving, an embroidered doily, a papier mache floral arrangement. In the stark camp environment, things of beauty sustain the soul, remind people of their humanity….The act of creating gave them something that no guard or government could take away.”

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Ikebana competition at a NW Internment Camp

Japanese in Puget Sound

A further affirmation, we found this image of ikebana created by Japanese prisoners held in Washington state.

Through August, the library at California State University, Sacramento, exhibits The Art of Gaman, including many of these floral pins. (Note: the library will be closed July 4th.)  The collection then travels to San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art, November 2-January 21, 2007. 

Congratulations to Delphine Hirasuna. And many thanks to Maria Henson, friend in Sacramento, for sending word.


Posted by Julie on 07/02 at 12:21 PM
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