Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher

"Konrad," sprach die Frau Mama,
"ich geh aus und du bleibst da.
Sei hübsch ordentlich und fromm,
bis nach Haus ich wieder komm.
Und vor allem, Konrad, hör!
lutsche nicht am Daumen mehr;
denn der Schneider mit der Scher
kommt sonst ganz geschwind daher,
und die Daumen schneidet er
ab, als ob Papier es wär."

Fort geht nun die Mutter und
wupp! den Daumen in den Mund.

Bauz! da geht die Türe auf,
und herein in schnellem Lauf
springt der Schneider in die Stub
zu dem Daumen-Lutscher-Bub.
Weh! jetzt geht es klipp und klapp
mit der Scher die Daumen ab,
mit der großen, scharfen Scher!
Hei! da schreit der Konrad sehr.

Als die Mutter kommt nach Haus,
sieht der Konrad traurig aus.
Ohne Daumen steht er dort,
die sind alle beide fort.

---

Story of the Thumb-Sucker

"Konrad!" cried his mamma dear,
"I'll go out, but you stay here,
Try how pretty you can be
Till I come again," said she.
"Docile be, and good and mild,
Pray don't suck your thumb, my child,
For if you do, the tailor'll come
And bring his shears and snip your thumb
From off your hand as clear and clean
As if paper it had been."

Before she'd turned the south,
He'd got his thumbkin in his mouth!

Bang! here goes the door ker-slam!
Whoop! the tailor lands ker-blam!
Waves his shears, the heartless grub,
and calls for Dawmen-lutscher-bub.
Claps his weapon to the thumb,
Snips it square as head of grum,
While that lad his tongue unfurled
And fired a yell heard 'round the world.

Who can tell mother's sorrow
When she saw her boy the morrow!
There he stood all steeped in shame,
And not a thumbkin to his name.

Two color photographs. The first shows boys in Diepsloot Township, Johannesburg, South Africa, playing with rolling toys that they have elaborately constructed our of discarded aluminum or steel, soft drink cans, plastic processed food tubs, and water bottles. The material that holds them together is ordinary wire such as coat-hangers. The second photo shows a close-up of one of the creations. Paint or some type of pigment seems to have been added to the bottle that forms the body of the vehicle, which is embellished with fringe-cut cans in the manner of a chimney or headlamp, and the margarine-tub trailer has a similar fringed can on the rear. The makers have given attention to color, form, movement and functionality in these toys. The photograph is from C is for Candy, the design blog by Candy Chang, photographer, designer, artist, and urban planner in Helsinki, Finland, who travels widely to collect innovative ideas about design and urban spaces, and is a 2009 TED Global Fellow.

RP: Bob, your family arrived at Amache, was it in August, did you say, of '42?

BF: We, we got there in September, early September.

RP: Was, were you able to enroll in school that first semester? Or. . .

BF: In Amache?

RP: Yes.

BF: Yeah. They, they. . . I don't remember school right away. But they, they did open up a school probably in late September or maybe even early October. The school was in the barracks.

RP: Right, can you share with us a little, a little bit of what you remember of junior high school, as it was in Amache.

BF: Yeah. I was, I was a twelve year. The, the barracks, they didn't have the partitions in there. They might have had a couple, couple of partitions. But we, we sat on wooden benches.

RP: Benches.

BF: No, no books to begin with. Later on we got, we got some discarded, outdated books. But there was a teacher with a chalkboard in front and they would put the information, some of the information on the chalkboard and we'd just copy it. So we, we had tablets and copied the information from the textbook. Then, lecture and that, that was the educational process for several months. The. . . we had, there was a high turnover of teachers because these, these were teachers -- we had some good teachers, but -- I'd have to say that by and large, the quality of, of teachers was, was not very good at first. There's a high turnover. Because they didn't know the conditions that they would be living under. Although they lived in Lamar and came by bus to Amache. But they weren't prepared to, to deal with the population. First of all, they must have looked at us like, how come. . . these are all Japanese Americans. They had never seen that kind of population. We hadn't, I hadn't seen such a population except for the language school. And so there was a high turnover. Some had, some of the teachers had come from Indian reservations some had come from. . . teachers who had just finished college. 'Course, I'm sure they expected that we would have books and desks and things like that. We didn't. I can give you an example of. . . music. They were gonna start a little orchestra or a band, I guess. I remember went to, went to the music room and the only thing they had left was an oboe. Never seen an oboe in my life. And didn't know how difficult it would be to play such a, such a thing. I remember going home with an oboe. Never did master that. And, it was, it was discarded stuff. I don't think. . . well, I guess they eventually had some kind of, of a band or an orchestra. I certainly wasn't a part of that. Although later on, they, they somehow someone got some instruments and formed a band, an orchestra.

RP: An orchestra for dances and. . .

BF: Yeah, for dances. There's a fellow out of Santa Anita named Brush Arai and he had the Brush Arai and his (Kanaka Boys Band) or something like that.

RP: So, the conditions under which education developed in Amache didn't sound very stimulating academically.

BF: Well, at that, at that. . . yeah.

RP: Did it change?

BF: It did change over time. I remember, well, another thing that happened was it was P.E. classes. And they didn't have the equipment so when it, when the weather's. . . you got snow and stuff outside, they have to hold P.E. classes inside one of the barracks and the equipment they had was a, was a mattress that they rolled up. And we spent the hour jumping around that and diving over the, over the mattress. I mean, what kind of P.E. class is that? And the, so the conditions were not ideal, by any means.

Bob Fuchigami, interview, May 14, 2008, Denver, Colorado. From Densho Digital Archive, <a class="external" href="http://www.densho.org/">http://www.densho.org/</a>. Interviewer: Richard Potashin, segment 20, denshovh-fbob-01 (accessed October 14, 2009).

Richard Potashin

RP: Bob, your family arrived at Amache, was it in August, did you say, of '42?

BF: We, we got there in September, early September.

RP: Was, were you able to enroll in school that first semester? Or. . .

BF: In Amache?

RP: Yes.

BF: Yeah. They, they. . . I don't remember school right away. But they, they did open up a school probably in late September or maybe even early October. The school was in the barracks.

RP: Right, can you share with us a little, a little bit of what you remember of junior high school, as it was in Amache.

BF: Yeah. I was, I was a twelve year. The, the barracks, they didn't have the partitions in there. They might have had a couple, couple of partitions. But we, we sat on wooden benches.

RP: Benches.

BF: No, no books to begin with. Later on we got, we got some discarded, outdated books. But there was a teacher with a chalkboard in front and they would put the information, some of the information on the chalkboard and we'd just copy it. So we, we had tablets and copied the information from the textbook. Then, lecture and that, that was the educational process for several months. The. . . we had, there was a high turnover of teachers because these, these were teachers -- we had some good teachers, but -- I'd have to say that by and large, the quality of, of teachers was, was not very good at first. There's a high turnover. Because they didn't know the conditions that they would be living under. Although they lived in Lamar and came by bus to Amache. But they weren't prepared to, to deal with the population. First of all, they must have looked at us like, how come. . . these are all Japanese Americans. They had never seen that kind of population. We hadn't, I hadn't seen such a population except for the language school. And so there was a high turnover. Some had, some of the teachers had come from Indian reservations some had come from. . . teachers who had just finished college. 'Course, I'm sure they expected that we would have books and desks and things like that. We didn't. I can give you an example of. . . music. They were gonna start a little orchestra or a band, I guess. I remember went to, went to the music room and the only thing they had left was an oboe. Never seen an oboe in my life. And didn't know how difficult it would be to play such a, such a thing. I remember going home with an oboe. Never did master that. And, it was, it was discarded stuff. I don't think. . . well, I guess they eventually had some kind of, of a band or an orchestra. I certainly wasn't a part of that. Although later on, they, they somehow someone got some instruments and formed a band, an orchestra.

RP: An orchestra for dances and. . .

BF: Yeah, for dances. There's a fellow out of Santa Anita named Brush Arai and he had the Brush Arai and his (Kanaka Boys Band) or something like that.

RP: So, the conditions under which education developed in Amache didn't sound very stimulating academically.

BF: Well, at that, at that. . . yeah.

RP: Did it change?

BF: It did change over time. I remember, well, another thing that happened was it was P.E. classes. And they didn't have the equipment so when it, when the weather's. . . you got snow and stuff outside, they have to hold P.E. classes inside one of the barracks and the equipment they had was a, was a mattress that they rolled up. And we spent the hour jumping around that and diving over the, over the mattress. I mean, what kind of P.E. class is that? And the, so the conditions were not ideal, by any means.

May 14, 2008

6:49

Denver, Colorado

(Yoshimitsu) Bob Fuchigami

314, 315, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322

Phoenix, Arizona, July 4 – The largest Indian school in the Southwest and the second largest in the Union is that in the Salt River Valley, near this place. It is unique in several respects. It is patronized by the Apaches, the Pimas, and the Maricopahs, who have until the past two years been the most lawless, intractable, and savage tribes Uncle Sam has had to deal with.

The fifty-seven Pima and Apache girls in the school under the supervision of the matron, learn to cook, wash, sew, and perform all other household duties, in addition to their study of the English language. The superintendent of the school finds the Indian girls less tractable to book learning than the boys, but they have a zeal for neatness in sewing and knitting that is astonishing. Very few of the girls have any taste for arithmetic and the forms of language, but they love to execute brightly colored maps and to draw. They are always much more reserved and diffident than their red-skinned brothers. The boys are handsome fellows, from fourteen to twenty-one years of age, and during certain hours of the day they are compelled to attend to the duties of the farm. They do not do this reluctantly, as one might suppose, but with good will and an apparent anxiety to learn. They are dressed in uniform, their hair kept closely trimmed, and they show their appreciation of the change from almost absolute nudity by keeping their shoes polished and their clothes nicely brushed. In the classroom they excel in arithmetic and spelling, and any exercise that brings the blackboards into use wins their attention. Strange as it may appear, they have not the least liking for exercising in the gymnasium, but in out-of-door sports, such as running races, leaping, and vaulting, they are very proficient.

A recent visit to the Indian school was a revelation in some respects. The writer has known the Pima Indians on their reservation as a fierce, sullen, obstinate, and cruel lot of savages, with a record second to not even the Apaches for horrible butcheries of white settlers and unspeakable barbarities upon their enemies in warfare. It was therefore a surprise to see over 150 of the boys and girls of these desert savages come marching into the chapel with military precision, dressed in handsome, neat-fitting garments, wearing linen shirts, and with their hair brushed with as much nicety as that of a city dude.

The surprise did not end there. When the opening hymn was announced one of Apache girls that five months before was running wild on the desert south of the Gila readily turned to the number, and, handing the writer the book, asked in good English if he would not take part with them.

Some of them sing splendidly, and Prof. Rich, the Superintendent of the school, says that they are natural musicians. Several of the younger ones have learned to play the organ, and with the French harp they will make an average city gamin ashamed of himself. Hugh Patten, one of the monitors, plays the piano very well, having picked the accomplishment up without any instruction, only being aided by his natural aptitude for music. This Indian is a peculiarity in Indian life. Some years ago he learned the English language, and acted as an interpreter from that time till the opening of the school, which he entered, where he has since remained. He discarded his Indian name and assumed an English one, and in the three years he has acquired a good English education. He is of medium size, rather dark, but with the prepossessing appearance of a student. He has done much to induce his people to adopt civilization, and is , of course, a warm friend of the school.

The two group portraits, taken at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, show Chiricahua Apache boys and girls at the time of their arrival in November 1886, and four months after arriving, in March 1887. John N. Choate was commissioned by the school to make portraits of the students as a public relations effort showing the success of the school in assimilating the Indians. Attended by over 12,000 Native American children from more than 140 tribes between 1879 and 1918, Carlisle was the model for nearly 150 Indian schools. Upon arrival, school officials cut the children's hair and exchanged their clothing for uniforms. Students were given Christian names, and were punished for speaking their native languages. Note the changes in dress, hair, and skin color, possibly due to the climate and to the emphasis on indoor activities. This group belonged to the Chiricahua Apache tribe, whose leader, the famous Geronimo, had surrendered with his followers in September 1886, marking the end of the Apache wars. The band, including 103 children, was taken prisoner and sent to Florida; many of the children were then taken to Carlisle School.

The students' names on the arrival photograph were recorded as (back row, left to right): Hugh Chee, Frederick Eskelsejah (Fred' k Eskelsijah), Clement Seanilzay, Samson Noran, Ernest Hogee. Middle row: Margaret Y. Nadasthilah. (front row): Humphrey Escharzay, Beatrice Kiahtel, Janette Pahgostatum, Bishop Eatennah, Basil Ekarden. A numbered version of the photograph exists. The photographer arranged the students in the same order in the later portrait. Scholars note that the "after" portraits followed established conventions of middle-class portraiture of the period, emphasizing the civilizing mission of the school. School founder Richard Platt described this goal in an 1892 speech "all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

http://ihrc.umn.edu/research/collage.php

University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center

August 2009

Scholars and teachers of the history of immigrant children will find useful materials at COLLAGE, a website hosted by the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center. COLLAGE is a sub-set of the Center's extensive research collections. The images available here come from various ethnic communities, organizations, and institutions across the United States and spans the 20th century. While the collections do not focus exclusively on children, searches for "youth," "children," "boys" and "girls" will yield rich veins of useful material for the study of childhood. Even though COLLAGE is specifically for photographs, its useful finding aids knowledgeably describe and define the institutions from which the photos derived. These descriptions are of pedagogical value, for they provide valuable histories of ethnic organizations.

One of the site's richest sources of images is the Central Cooperative Wholesale (CCW) collection, which documents the Finnish American farmer's co-op movement. The description explains that Finnish immigrant farmers at the turn of the last century formed consumers' cooperatives as a way to strengthen their communities' economic standing. The photographs in the CCW records – a subset of the Center's Finnish American collection – attest to the CCW's role as more than a business venture for adult farmers; it also served a role for the children of those families, providing them with a connection to their ethnic heritage while encouraging them to thrive and succeed in American life. For example, the CCW sponsored essay contests and hosted summer camps for youth, whom they photographed in these activities to promote the cooperative and its products. In this picture, boys at a CCW camp do crafts using the co-op's own brand of spray-paint. In other photos, essay-contest visitors make an appearance on local radio and watch demonstrations of CCW employees at work.

These photos from the 1930s and 1940s suggest that the CCWs camps and essay-contests were aimed at boys; the few photos of little girls in the CCW collection show them playing with dolls in a co-op store. However, some photographs from a later period – the 1950s and 1960s – show adolescent girls in Cooperative-sponsored activities, such as its "Youth Conference" in the late 1950s.

COLLAGE also contains images from other Finnish-American institutions that served youth; this photo, from 1930, shows Massachusetts teens in a "gymnastics group" organized by the Tyomies Society. As the finding-aid explains, "The Tyomies Society was a radical Finnish-American publishing company which produced the daily newspaper Tyomies. The Company began as a Finnish American Socialist organization, later Communist."

Indeed, COLLAGE has numerous photos from Socialist or Communist youth-organizations. Teachers could use this sort of material, not only to illustrate the importance of ethnic communities for first-generation children, but also to discuss the role of radical politics in the education of youth during the early 20th century. There was a strong Leftist strain in American politics of that period, particularly among immigrant laborer populations, and one prominent feature of that movement was its focus on youth-education. The COLLAGE photos demonstrate the intersections of ethnicity, social class, and politics in the lives of American immigrant youth.

Although the Finns seem to be the best-represented nationality on the COLLAGE site, they are by no means the only one. Materials from The International Institute of San Francisco include photos of teenage boys and girls dancing at a Chinese Youth Club, and performing at the Institute's "China Night", both in the 1960s. While the dancing teens seem "Americanized" in every way, the photos from "China Night" show youth engaged in a celebration of Chinese language and culture. The juxtaposition of such photos can help teach students that racial/national identities are often plural and fluid, not singular and static, in the lives of immigrant populations.

Visitors to COLLAGE can also see Greek-American teens of the 1950s studying Greek; Italian-American youth in an ethnic celebration in Massachusetts; Polish-American children marching in traditional costumes in a 1950s Boston parade; young folk-dancers at the 25th anniversary of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine in New York; and covers from a magazine published in the 1970s for Belarusan youth.

The photographs at COLLAGE are, in themselves, valuable and engaging tools for research and teaching. The site's only failing – and this is a substantial one – is its poor organization and navigability. A visitor who searches the photo collections will want to read the finding aids' descriptions of the photos – yet once you are in the website's finding-aid section, there is no link provided to get back to the COLLAGE search. Nor are there any categories provided for browsing the photos. One can only browse the collections' names by title (many of which are named for private individuals, with no indication of which nationality or subjects the collection represents), or conduct a search by typing specific words into the search-box. If the Immigration History Center wants to improve its website for pedagogical purposes, it will need to group its photographs into numerous cross-listed subject headings. Until that time, teachers who wish to use these materials in classrooms will need to chart a path for themselves before-hand and bookmark the relevant materials.

Ilana Nash

Western Michigan University

The images available here come from various ethnic communities, organizations, and institutions across the United States and spans the 20th century.