Doll With Eight Band Aids

by David Izu

Doll with band aids on forehead, top of head missing
Ibuki Hibi Lee’s doll. Photographed by David Izu. Used with kind permission from Ibuki Hibi Lee and Nancy Ukai Russell.
Eight band aids yellowed
crackle spread like a spiderweb
tattooed over the face
around the eyes
of a doll of 77 years
a concentration camp survivor
along with its owner
a girl then 5 now 82
         
This could be a pretext
for cross cultural aesthetics
the nobility of endurance
wabi and sabi embedded
in the passage of plastic through time
a model of a minority triumphant

or not

The doll’s eyes bigger than her mouth
she’s seen so much
said so little

Hisako Hibi and daughter Ibuki (holding doll), awaiting a bus to Tanforan. Hayward, 1942.
Hisako and Ibuki Hibi with doll awaiting the bus to Tanforan, 1942. National Archives and Records Administration, #537522.

About the contributor: David Izu is a San Francisco Bay Area-based artist. His mother was incarcerated at Poston, AZ; his father escaped imprisonment in a family caravan to Utah, where he was drafted to serve in the U.S. Army in Europe. Dave has taught at Stanford, UC Berkeley, the SF Art Institute and the California College of the Arts. His work is in the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as well as other institutions.

Copyright 2019, David Izu. All rights reserved.

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