2018 / Santa Monica Main Library to host an event for recalling Japanese American’s swing dance at wartime incarceration camps, May 19

Swing dances by young Japanese Americans at a wartime incarceration camp.

Barbed Wire to Boogie Woogie: Swing in the Japanese American Internment Camps

Saturday, May 19, 2018, at 2:00PM
Santa Monica Main Library
601 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90401

Martin Luther King, Jr. Auditorium & North Courtyard

During World War II, more than 110,000 Japanese American were incarcerated at makeshift facilities at 10 locations in remote desert in the US. And the makeshift facilities in desert were called “Camp” by interned Japanese Americans.

Parents and Japanese American leaders, while they were suffering in the camps, wanted the young people to continue to lead a normal life as possible. Even if they did not have radios, some people had old phonograph records and the young Japanese American danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington in the camps.

In the Santa Monica Library program, dance preservationist Rusty Frank will discuss the history of swing dance and how it provided temporary respite from life in the camps. Takayo Tsubouchi Fischer and June Aochi Berk, who met while incarcerated at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas, will share photos, dance cards and other memorabilia.

Anyone who remembers dancing in the camps are welcome to join the conversation. And if the children of the descendants of the camp want to learn more about how their parents coped in the camp, they are also welcome.

After the presentation, Rusty Frank will lead an easy dance lesson on the “Shim Sham Shimmy” in the North Courtyard of the library. No partner needed.

This program is free and all ages are welcome. Seating is limited and on a first-arrival basis.