The Body
The Body
This exhibit explores the experience of family members by focusing on the stories related to their bodies- backs, teeth, face, abdomen. What does the experience of the body tell us about the story of this human experience? How are experiences embodied or experienced and remembered through the body?
Abdomen
Tomi designed a girdle to be used to support the abdomen during pregnancy, got it patented by the U.S. patent office and marketed her design with a Japanese flyer. This must have been an enterprising feat for her to do while raising a number of children.
She later suffered an ectopic pregnancy which was operated on and later had a hernia that went untreated by 12 years until it was treated by surgery while in detention. Was it possible that she gave more attention to her own bodily needs after being forced to live in detention and away from running her dry cleaning and alterations business in Oakland? Or did she have better access to a doctor here? Or was this the case because her daughter who was a nurse was now living with her in the close confines of their section of the barrack instead of hundreds of miles away in Calexico- each in their respective houses with the privacy of their own domains and their own occupations? This was also the first time that she took up art classes as she did with Chiura Obata, who was already friends with the family. And what of the flyer that she possibly circulated among the Issei and Japanese-speaking community in Oakland? Did anyone purchase such a girdle from her? This pregnancy girdle was used by one of her grandchildren and was exhibited in the 1980s.
Photo of exhibit display on Japanese American Women which included Tomi's (cotton) girdle and flyer (circa 1989)
Tomi's record of surgery while in detention, above, reveals that she had been living with a hernia for twelve years. The record reveals that she also had an ectopic pregnancy which was operated on circa 1923.
Teeth
Mr. Inukai, a dentist, sent a box of cantaloupes to the people staying at the hostel. Presumably, after being incarcerated, he returned to Oakland to set up his dental practice again.
Dr. Inukai's business card.
Kay, at left, testifying at Commission on Wartime Relocation and Interment of Civilians in Chicago.
Kay wrote the following testimony for the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians:
"At the time of Executive Order 9066, I had platinum braces on my teeth. I had only been able to make one payment when I had to tell my orthodontist that I would have to leave for the Assembly Center. With tears streaming down his face, he clipped off the braces and fitted me with a retainer. He asked me to find a dentist as soon as possible, and to drink lots of milk. But there was no milk and no dentist. In a short time the retainer did not fit and I eventually lost all of my teeth. I could relate the whole experience and prove that we lost everything! But that is the story of almost every Japanese American and certainly the people the world over in time of war! The irony of our situation is that the evacuation need not have happened with the attendant suffering and agony."