Topaz Collages

In May of 2021, Jeanie Kashima, one of our Topaz Stories contributors, contacted me to say that she had been spending the lockdown creating collages using some of the old photos taken by her uncle in Topaz.

She sent me photos of four of them, and I enthusiastically asked her permission to use them to illustrate her story, “Topaz Birth.” She agreed.

Inside a barrack laundry room. Beside a large laundry tub, a newly born baby lies in an orange crate on the floor along with a bucket and crumpled towels. Collage by Jeanie Kashima.
Collage of Block 4 laundry room on September 22, 1942. Jeanie in her makeshift “cradle.” Copyright Jeanie Kashima, 2021. Used with kind permission.

Jeanie has continued creating collages, and twelve of them will be on display at the Visions Museum of  Textile Art in San Diego, CA, from January 23, 2023 until May 27, with an opening on January 21 at 1 p.m.

If you are in the San Diego area, be sure to check out “Topaz Collages” by Jeanie Kashima.

“Topaz Collages”

January 23 – May 27, 2023
Visions Museum of Textile Art
2825 Dewey Rd #100, San Diego, CA
https://vmota.org/

The Topaz Stories Team

Contact us if you have a Topaz Story to share.
Follow us on Instagram @topazstories

Media Coverage:
Watch Topaz survivors tell their stories (abc4 news, 4/22/2022)
Listen to the “In the Hive” podcast with interviews with Ann Dion, Jonathan Hirabayashi, and Topaz survivors Jeanie Kashima and Joseph Nishimura (KCPW, 4/28/2022)
Read How a Utah exhibit about Topaz Camp looks to find empathy in ‘an ugly stain on American history (ksl.com, 4/22/2022)
Read “Topaz Stories rise from the dust,” (Department of Culture & Community Engagement, 4/2022)
Listen to KQED Forum, Day of Remembrance interview with Ruth Sasaki, 2/15/2022
Listen to Max Chang and Ruth Sasaki interviewed (KRCL RadioActive, 2/9/2022
Read On Topaz Stories and ‘Authentic Voice’, the Discover Nikkei interview with Ruth Sasaki (10/14/2022)
Listen to Remembering the Japanese American Incarceration, the Topaz Stories podcast with Ruth Sasaki and Jonathan Hirabayashi (6/2/2021)

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