Youth Hi-Lites: Minidoka Music
Minidoka Music
By Izzy Martin, Summer High School Intern, One Stone School
Minidoka had the potential to be a place full of hopelessness, despair, and lost dreams. While all these feelings existed, and rightfully so, the people incarcerated at Minidoka were not ready to put their lives on pause. Instead, George L. Townsend, Minidoka Community Activities Supervisor, hired a number of incarcerees to head up the performing arts side of camp. One of these leaders was Mae Kanazawa Hara, a twenty-nine year old music professional with a music degree from Chicago American Conservatory, Washington University, and additional training from Rodeheavers Sacred Music School. After graduating, she taught piano at the Toyo Eiwa jogakko school for four years in Japan. In 1939, she returned to Seattle and married Iwao Hara, who was a budding accountant. While in Seattle, she became the choir director for the Japanese Methodist Church. Thanks to her extensive training, the choir was asked to sing for many prominent events, including a meeting for Toyohiko Kagawa, a well known Japanese theologian.
Fast forward to the Spring of 1942 and Mae and Isao were taken to an “assembly center” in Puyallup Washington, a crudely converted fairground. When the August heat rolled in, the couple was moved 622 miles away from their home in Seattle, to Minidoka. As soon as Mae walked into camp, she was told to report to headquarters. To her surprise, she was asked to head up the music department, in an effort to keep up morale for the 10,000 people in camp.
As soon as she received her assignment, she got to work. In an Densho interview Mae said, “I've never worked (so hard) anywhere where I was given so much support and help in this desolate situation. And we could have stood there and be disgruntled and all that, but we didn't even have time. We were so busy.” Mae organized a choir of 89 voices to rehearse once a week at a central location in the five-mile wide camp. They started out with one filing cabinet full of music and a few pianos. Due to limited resources, Mae put the young people to work stenciling out copies of sheet music. The Minidoka Mass Choir was born. From the hospital ward to an audience of more than 1,000 at Twin Falls First Methodist church, the Minidoka Mass Choir brought purpose and meaning to an extremely unjust situation. 18-year old Fumi Kaseguma said that despite her “bad” singing voice, she joined the choir almost right away. For her, the experience was very fun and she enjoyed Mae Hara as director. She also noted that the neighboring townspeople did not discriminate against the singers when they performed outside of Minidoka, an example of the power music holds over people, ultimately pointing them back to their shared humanity.
Another instance of music in Minidoka was the lively dance band, The Harmonaires. Started by Koichi Hayashi in December 1939, the band had a rough start. Their musical experience was limited, and the ongoing criticism they faced from the public did not help their confidence. However, the group stuck together and embarked on a tour along the west coast, hitting all the major California cities. This time, the abundance of performance opportunities paired with positive feedback changed each member from beginner players into accomplished musicians.
However, just as The Harmonaires were gaining popularity, the entire band was incarcerated at the start of World War II. In September of their first year at Minidoka, Louie Sato, Terry Kumagai, Renbo Yoshitomi, Suzuki, George Ogata, Kaoru Kitaya, and Joo Owaki left temporarily to work in nearby onion fields as was the common practice for many Minidoka incarcerees. Naturally, each musician brought instruments along to practice in their spare time. But as the band fiddled around, people started to listen. Soon, many workers from the Twin Falls FFA camp came to hear their music. Because of all the attention, the Harmonaires decided to host a dance! On September 19th, 1942, they played tunes for the dancing onion pickers, in particular a song called “Sleepy Lagoon” by Harry James. Some of the lyrics read,
“We're deep in a spell as nightingales tell
Of roses and dew
The memory of this moment of love
Will haunt me forever
A tropical moon, a sleepy lagoon
And you”
The boys wrote back to Hayashi in camp, telling him, “It went over big.” Another example worth mentioning is when the band played for a prom in Twin Falls under armed guard. What a strange experience that would be. Somehow our government still saw the group as a threat, despite their most dangerous weapon being a trombone.
For many Minidoka residents, a popular song of the time by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters became somewhat of an anthem to their freedom. A few lines in particular were especially resonant for these American incarcerees:
“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever, but I ask you please
Don't fence me in”
Don’t Fence Me In
By Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters
Cited Sources:
Kaseguma, Fumi. Conducted by Tom Ikeda. Densho Visual History Collection. Segment 14. Densho. November 6, 2007 https://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-203-14/?tableft=segments
Kanazawa Hara, Mae. Conducted by Alice Ito. Densho Visual History Collection. Densho. July 15, 2004 https://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-168-4/?tableft=segments
The Minidoka irrigator. (Hunt, ID) 11 Nov. 1942, p. 4. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84024049/1942-11-11/ed-1/.
The Minidoka irrigator. (Hunt, ID) 13 Feb. 1943, p. 4. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84024049/1943-02-13/ed-1/.
The Minidoka irrigator. (Hunt, ID) 13 Feb. 1943, p. 4. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84024049/1943-02-13/ed-1/.
The Minidoka irrigator. (Hunt, ID) 30 Jan. 1943, p. 6. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84024049/1943-01-30/ed-1/.
Ikeda, Tsuguo. Conducted by Alice Ito. Densho Visual History Collection. Interview I Segment 18. Densho. September 27, 2000 https://ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr-densho-1000-123-18/
“The Harmonaires.” Hamanaka Family Collection. Densho. c.1942-1946 https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-280-8/
The Minidoka irrigator. (Hunt, ID) 22 Sep. 1942, p. 2. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/sn84024049/1942-09-22/ed-1/.
Vogt, Tom. “Swing for the Fences.” The Columbian Publishing Company. https://projects.columbian.com/2018/07/15/minidoka-swing-band/