by Estella Glickstein

In Japanese internment camps like Manzanar, music, and radio played a significant role in providing entertainment for the internees. They would gather around radios to listen to music and updates about the outside world. Music served as a means to bring people together and foster a sense of community. As stated by Minako Waseda “the internees were truly in need of recreational activities—including music and dance—as a way to bring enjoyment and solace to the grim and stressful camp life and to sustain hope.” (“Music in Japanese…”) This highlights how music was essential for providing joy and keeping the internees entertained during their time in the camps.With plenty of free time on their hands, the internees sought activities to occupy themselves. The government also attempted to introduce American culture into the camps, including jazz music. According to the same article, “Nonetheless, by performing and dancing to big band jazz repertoires, young Japanese Americans, consciously or not, were affirming their identity as Americans.”(“Music in Japanese…”) This demonstrates that the presence of jazz bands in the camps helped Japanese Americans engage with and better understand American culture. The musicians in these jazz bands were also compensated with a monthly salary.In summary, in internment camps like Manzanar, music and radio were vital sources of entertainment, allowing internees to connect with one another and maintain a sense of hope amid challenging circumstances.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”, stated Aldous Huxley in his novel The Rest Is Noise. This quote becomes especially true when you examine how music and radio changed, both in what was playing and how people viewed it after the Second World War. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, radio and music became a source of comfort for people recovering from the war and brought cultural change in entertainment.  In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne was a young girl who experienced many extreme changes in her life because of the war, like living in an internment camp, watching her father struggle with addiction, and her brother Woody being drafted. She says, “[The] shapeless dread of that great dark cloud in my imagination gradually receded, soothed away by a sky the same blue it had always been, lawns the same green, traffic signals that still changed with dependable regularity, and familiar radio programs that fill up the late afternoons and evenings” (Houston). Since leaving the camp, she had to overcome drastic changes and deal with judgment from her peers for being Japanese-American. She found comfort in the familiarity of simple things like the radio programs that would play. Like many other Americans during the post-war period, comfort was found in being able to come home and listen to the same music and radio programs while the world was constantly changing. The post-war period not only brought continuity but also change. Television rapidly began gaining popularity among young people and families nationwide. According to Khan Academy, “Many comedies presented an idealized image of white suburban family life: happy housewife mothers, wise fathers, and mischievous but not dangerously rebellious children…These shows also reinforced certain perspectives on the values of individualism and family—values that came to be redefined as ‘American’”. (Khan Academy). The ideas shown on TV began to influence American culture and tried to glorify the lives of suburban life. What was worn on popular shows became the newest fashion trends, and the products advertised gained popularity. From the start of the Second World War to now, radio and music are still used as an outlet for creativity and a way for people to cope with world events and the stress of daily life challenges, as well as shaping how we act and think through trends.