Disability explored via art

To better understand hardships faced by people with disabilities, UNM special needs education students learn about art created under adverse conditions—including those of World War II Japanese internment camps.

UNM students in the Department of Educational Specialties, which houses the special education and art education programs, learn to educate children about social justice issues and artistic expression, said department Chair Ruth Luckasson.

“The Art of Gaman,” a lecture by Delphine Hirasuna, presents art made in Japanese internment camps, and Luckasson said it will help students understand the oppression and prejudice that disabled children face.

“I had been interested in the Japanese internment camps because of the similarities,” Luckasson said. “The internment of people who are Jewish, or gypsies or homosexuals, the whole Holocaust, is similar to the long-term, massive institutionalization of people with disabilities.”

Luckasson said art is universally important to people living harsh realities.

“It’s an avenue for the human spirit to emerge, to emerge and be seen,” she said. “They (disabled children) might not have as many opportunities, or they might not be able to do other things. If somebody is limited in verbal expression, then the art might be really important.”

Hirasuna wrote a book that discusses the role homemade folk art played in the lives of prisoners. Hirasuna studied jewelry, pins, weavings, miniature furniture and pictures on little rocks, all created by prisoners. Hirasuna said one can see the hardships in the limited materials used to create the art, but she said the art’s subject matter was surprisingly candid.

“The photographer who shot the pictures of the objects, he kept saying ‘where’s the anger?’” Hirasuna said. “I would think if I were painting in camp, I would want to paint a picture of my old home, but they kept painting the barracks over and over as if they painted enough they could make sense of where they were and why they were there.”

Hirasuna’s parents and two-year-old brother were taken into internment camps. Her older sister was born in a camp, and her uncle and aunt were married in a camp. Her dad was drafted for the army in a camp. Hirasuna was born a year after the family left the camp.

Hirasuna said the most difficult part of the project was starting it.

“The worst part of it was when I first started doing the research,” she said. “My parents didn’t talk about (internment camp), so I had no idea what it was like. When I started reading about it, I got more and more depressed. I got depressed and angry.”

She said she welcomes emotional reactions from others to the subject matter.

“Each time I speak, someone comes up and tells me a story and I’m just blown away by it,” she said. “I think it’s cathartic for the people telling me the story.”

“The Art of Gaman”
Tonight, 7 p.m.
Travelstead Hall
Free