February 1, 2017 through March 3, 2017 at at Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures, 4455 E. Camp Lowell Drive, Tucson

“Hinamatsuri or Girls’ Day is an annual holiday in Japan held on March 3^rd, which honors the health and well-being of girls. The holiday celebration includes special foods and sweets and the exhibit of a plum tree, flowers and a Hina doll display. The doll display is set up by families in mid-February to rid the girls of bad spirits and to renew and strengthen their character. The custom of erecting a doll display is rooted in a traditional belief that dolls have the power to contain bad spirits. To rid their homes of evil spirits, ancient Japanese people had a ritual called Hinanagashi, in which straw Hina dolls were set afloat on a boat down a river out to sea. In some regions of Japan, people follow this tradition and float the dolls from the Hina display on Girls’ Day.

The Hina doll display includes ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress and their court set on a seven-tiered stand covered with a red carpet or cloth. Since Hinamatsuri was first celebrated in the Heian period (10^th and 11^th centuries) the dolls are dressed in the court garb of that period. The Imperial dolls are placed at the top of the display followed by three tiers featuring particular attendants or musicians. The bottom two tiers are filled with palatial items such as furniture, tools and carriages. Traditionally the Hina doll display is set up in February and disassembled no later than March 4^th because it is believed that setting up the display early and clearing it out promptly will bring an early marriage for the girls. Failure to do so could mean a late marriage or no marriage at all.

The Girls’ Day Display at The Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures is a five-tiered display including 15 dolls and other symbolic accessories. The display dates to the 1950s and was donated to the museum in 2014 by Nancy Phillips. The display will be up from February 1 through March 3, 2017.”

“Beyond Barbed Wire: Celebrating the Legacy of Japanese American Baseball” January 22, 2017 at 1:30 pm, free event in Tucson Desert Art Museum auditorium, 7000 E. Tanque Verde Rd.

“Baseball was immensely important to the Japanese Americans in concentration camps. Bill Staples, author of “Kenichi Zenimura: Japanese American Baseball Pioneer”, will share how baseball helped raise the spirits of those in the camps and also helped with outside prejudice as the camps invited outside teams to play in matches. This event is free in the auditorium. Museum admission rates apply for entrance to the exhibit.”

Panelists:

Bill Staples – author of “Kenichi Zenimura: Japanese American Baseball Pioneer”

Kerry Yo Nakagawa – author and baseball historian, expert in Japanese American baseball

Tets Furukawa – former player/pitcher with the 1945 Gila River Eagles

Kenso Zenimura –  followed in his father’s footsteps as a talented player, coach, and mentor, as well as an ambassador for international baseball”

Photo: “The 1944 league baseball season got under way at the Tule Lake center on April 19. Nearly half of the 17,000 residents of the center were present for the opening game.”

photo courtesy of the Tucson Desert Art Museum.

Info: http://www.tucsondart.org/

As part of the WWII Japanese American internment of about 120,000 civilians, two of the larger camps were at Gila River and at Poston in Arizona. Several of the families of those who were interned still live in Arizona, some here in Tucson. Well known Tucson educator the late Dr. Hank Oyama and his mother were interned at Poston Relocaiton Center.

Text of Brandon’s gallery chat available here at: http://aaww.org/state-erasure-arizona/

Excerpts about his interned family members:

“My grandfather, Midori Shimoda, was born on an island off the coast of Hiroshima and immigrated to the United States when he was eight.

He was incarcerated in Salt Lake City under suspicion of blowing up a uranium mill in southern Utah. He was incarcerated in a Department of Justice prison at Fort Missoula, Montana, under suspicion of being a spy for Japan. Both suspicions were formed, in part, by the anxiety that was produced by even the specter of a Japanese man in the minds of his white accusers.

His brother, my great-uncle Makeo, was incarcerated in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. His sister-in-law, my great-aunt Joy was incarcerated in Poston, in western Arizona. She was four when the United States deemed her an enemy of the state and considered it a military necessity to remove her, with her family, from her home in California, and incarcerate her in the middle of the desert.

On behalf of my great-aunt Joy, my great-uncle Makeo, and my grandfather Midori, I want to share with you some things I have been learning about Arizona’s place, and the place of Arizona, in the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans.”

See www.facebook.com/tucsonmochi/ for updates — door prizes and schedule of performances. Many thanks to our donors for gift certificates received from Ginza Sushi, Yoshimatsu, Sushi on Oracle, Sushi Cho, Sushi Zona, & Samurai Japanese restaurants and Bing’s Boba Tea– to be given away as door prizes. Another donor for this festival is H.I.S. International Tours Inc. which offers many tours to Japan.

UPDATE:  Akiwa Abe Brown will be performing koto along with Paul Amiel on shakuhachi flute in a duet, plus her own solo “Rokudan”.  This performance time is about 1:50 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. on Stage B, but may be moved to CC251 in the event of rain.

Akiwa Abe Brown performing on her koto

Paul Amiel performing on his shakuhachi flute at 2015 New Year’s Mochitsuki