World War ll artist presents new memoir to USU community
Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey, a poet and artist who was held in a Japanese holding camp during World War II, presented her memoir Tuesday. Students, faculty and community members filled the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art study room to listen to Havey talk about her memoir entitled, “Gasa-Gasa Girl Goes to Camp: A Nisei Youth Behind a World War ll Fence.” It was published in June by the University of Utah Press.
Havey, now 82 years old, was 10 years old when she was first incarcerated in the Amache Japanese internment camp in Colorado. Although she lived in Amache at the beginning of World War ll, she didn’t begin working on her memoir until the 1980s. The reason she created artwork, Havey said, was to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by camp life.
“I didn’t paint these things because I had a social message,” Havey said. “I did it really as a selfish thing. I thought, ‘Oh, maybe if I got all of this emotional stuff out of the way, then my life would become calmer.’”
Havey said the more she paints and writes about her experience, the less she feels the negative emotional impact.
During her presentation, Havey showed pictures of her artwork to the crowd and described their intended meanings and significance.
Havey said many of her paintings tell stories. She said one tells of her fear of being shot by the soldiers in the camp, another tells of the wild dust storms in the camp and another tells of her desire to follow rabbits to freedom on the other side of Amache’s barbed-wire fence. These are only a few of the many paintings Havey included in her memoir.
“There’s always a story,” said Nadra Haffar, NEHMA’s education curator. “Art is a product of our historical and political and economic events.”
Haffar said artwork was created by many citizens in Japanese internment camps. NEHMA owns pieces from several of these artists, including Ruth Asawa, the artist who created the large wire sculpture in NEHMA’s lobby. More of Asawa’s work is on display in the Black Mountain College exhibit. The museum also has pieces by other artists from this time period in its special collections.
“There’s an artistic culture that comes out of these internment camps,” said Victoria Grieve, an assistant professor of history at USU who helped coordinate Havey’s visit. “Topaz [an internment camp located in Utah] is an excellent example because there were art teachers and people who smuggled in cameras.”
Havey’s memoir includes some of the work of photographer Jack Muro, who created his own dark room under his Amache barrack in order to develop his photographs.
Although many works have come from the camps, Grieve said Havey’s memoir is a great addition to the collection because it appeals to a variety of readers.
“Her book is more poetic and memoir and visual
arts than a straight-up history,” Grieve said. “I think
approaching the topic from a different angle will broaden the audience on some
level.”