With Patience & Dignity 

With the passivity to cope with adversity also existed strength in the patience and perseverance of the internees. On top of creating objects out of necessity in order to endure the maltreatment, the internees created art to amuse and express themselves, as there was little to do due to their lack of freedom. The creation of beautiful art and objects allowed the internees to bear the catastrophic circumstances that they had no power in changing. Throughout all of the camps, “sumi-e brush painting, ikebana flower arranging, whittling, haiku writing, and drawing” were popular ways to pass the time and satisfy a desire for beauty in such desolate environments (Hirasuna 359). Across all mediums, there is consistency in the amount of detail, a certain level of intricacy that can only come from time and focus. This portrays the spirit of the internees despite their harsh living situations; the time, patience, and care it must have taken to create such objects are the physical manifestations of their gaman, shikataganai, and gambatte mindsets. Most of these artists did not continue with their artistic endeavors once they were released from the camps, supporting the idea that the intricate creations were simply a temporary way to patiently survive the imprisonment. The internees channeled old cultural convictions like gaman during a time of extreme adversity in order to survive those rough years. 

Such cultural notions of patient persistence influenced the internees to maintain outward silence and inward reflection. The internees saw outward complaining as an addition to the struggle that would worsen the experience for those around them and themselves. Rather than express outwardly about their personal and communal struggles, the internees utilized their surroundings to create objects and art that allowed them to privately work through their emotions. This creating-to-gaman speaks to the use of the quiet technology of artwork to privately organize one’s emotions and thoughts; the created objects helped the internees quietly cope. As a result, hundreds of objects, works of art, and photographs are left over from the internment camps that accurately reflect the emotions of the prisoners. Now, even if the survivors are reluctant to speak on their experiences due to their strong convictions of gaman, the objects created as a manifestation of gaman during the war may tell their stories. 

“ I remember thinking, ‘Am I a human being? Why are we being treated like this?'”

"We were going to lose our freedom and walk inside of that gate and find ourselves cooped up there… when the gates were shut, we knew that we had lost something that was very precious; that we were no longer free.”