Page 20 - Allison's Magazine Issue #97

Mira Nakashima, daughter and ‘nonaliens’ within 150 miles of the
Pacific coast were rounded up and sent
of renowned woodworker
to internment camps out of fear that
and furniture builder George they would collaborate with the Japanese
Nakashima, took the reins of her across the Pacific Ocean. My father’s
DOVETAILING father’s studio after his death experience as an Eagle Scout helped
him cope in Camp Minidoka in Idaho.
and has continued his legacy of He worked side by side with a Japanese
A LEGACY impeccably designed furniture carpenter to make our barracks more

livable and comfortable. They used the
interview with mira nakashima that respects the life and will of
written by shelley goldstein materials at hand and improvised with
photography courtesy of nakashima foundation for peace the wood. hand tools as best they could, which
(www.nakashimafoundation.org)
turned out to be a very important
What was your father’s education? learning experience in my father’s life.
My father went to the University of
Washington and majored in forestry Why did your father move the family
for his first two years before switching to New Hope, Pennsylvania? How
to architecture; while there, he won was he able to use his skills?
scholarships to Harvard and to Ecoles My father’s former employer in
d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau Tokyo, well-known architect Antonin
outside of Paris. He quickly switched Raymond, had left Japan in 1939 and
from Harvard to MIT, where he received was living in a farmhouse in Bucks
his master’s in architecture in 1930. County in Pennsylvania. Antonin and
his wife, Noémi, petitioned to have my
Your father worked as an architect father come and tend the chickens on
in India and Japan for seven years their farm, so we were allowed to leave
before moving back to the United the camp in 1943, two years before
States. Did he intend to be an the war ended. On the farm, my father
architect in Seattle? What happened made furniture out of found materials,
in 1942? along with one coffee table made of his
My parents were married in Los precious planks of East Indian teak he
Angeles in 1941 and then moved to had brought from Seattle.
Seattle, where my father decided he
would rather make furniture than be
an architect. In 1942, shortly after I
was born, all the Japanese nationals

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