The MOHAI currently holds dozens of Girls’ and Boys’ Day dolls that couldn’t fit into the singular suitcases folks were allowed to bring with them during the incarceration of 125,000 people of Japanese descent. These traditional Japanese dolls were then entrusted to Bailey Gatzert Elementary School.
Artist Miya Sukune, through research, interviews with survivors, and community involvement, has literally and figuratively created a backdrop for their return home with her exhibition, TADAIMA: “I’m Home” Bringing Seattle’s Girls’ and Boys’ Day Dolls Home.
“With the dolls being given up by the families, by children, it’s an uprooting of that family life and community culture. The dolls become symbols of the World War II incarceration—separated from their families and purpose, given to the elementary school principal with hopes of return or retrieval,” Sukune explained.
She also highlights the double meaning of the concept of “home” within this exhibit. On one hand, the dolls traditionally live in the home and celebrate daughters, good health, and happiness. On the other hand, it reflects the forced removal of families from their homes and communities. Many of these dolls never got to return to their homes, much like how many folks never returned to theirs.
“Making decorations was a major part of Hinamatsuri [Girl’s Day] in my family, and while MOHAI originally commissioned the painting, I organized workshops to create the flower displays. Nikkei Manor helped with the flowers. I wanted the community to have a chance to participate in making something for the dolls,” Sukune said.
She mentioned how many folks at Nikkei Manor didn’t remember a lot but recognized and knew people that are part of the exhibit, which is, in a way, a testament to the resilience of the JA community that was not necessarily conscious: a forming of such a tightly-wound community bound not only by shared trauma but shared culture and resistance in each complex form that it manifested, during and especially after the war.
During her research, Sukune also learned that children born in Minidoka who attended Bailey Gatzert after the war remember seeing the dolls on at school. This meant that the dolls were on display during the Japanese American community’s resettlement and period of rebuilding—a symbol of resistance in that display case.
“Along with enduring incarceration, families were surviving the injustice. They were resisting as No-No Boys and putting up a monument for James Hatsuaki Wakasa—burying it instead of destroying it when the Topaz administration said to remove it,” Sukune said.
She adds, “the Japanese American World War II incarceration isn’t even the precedent in US history, Indigenous land displacement being an earlier example, so bringing these cycles of events into the conversation is important. These mass removals and displacements happened before and are happening again.”
It is a paradoxically familiar experience being surrounded by color, elegance, and beauty, while also, behind the flowers, standing amidst tangible trauma, loss, and fear; we currently go about our days as normal while families and communities are being ripped apart all around us.
“Ultimately, the Nihonmachi communities disappeared because of the incarceration. The sense of safety, connection, camaraderie—all the things communities should provide—are disappearing again with current events. I overheard people talk about what it’s like now while in the exhibit and how history has cycled back around with ICE and deportations,” Sukune said.
These dolls celebrate and commemorate the family homes in which they used to reside, whose preservation during the incarceration symbolize the Japanese American community’s resilience and hope. They were left behind, perhaps representing the idea of home to which many hoped to return.
