Isamu: Becoming Nisei

Abstract

Isamu checked into the desert asylum. Out there, the war was ongoing. They said it would be safer inside. Looking as he did like the enemy, he’d avoid hostility, be protected, and be together with his own kind. And since he was volunteering to enter, it was an act of loyalty, in support of the cause. He wasn’t crazy as the others; there are degrees of crazy. He was on the lower end of that spectrum, functionally superior by contrast, and certainly famous enough, or let’s say, marketable. He brought his work with him. Those were his conditions: bring in his tools, machinery, supplies, set up a workshop studio. Of course, he wasn’t asking for special treatment; he’d live just like everyone else. Fair enough. Eventually he’d build what he required, get the others involved, inspire and train, create a working community. It was like starting from scratch, ground zero, starting anew. The desert terrain was a blank state. Anything was imaginable, but you had to have imagination.