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#Minidoka War Relocation Center
rabbitcruiser · 2 months
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The Presidential Proclamation 2537 which required that Americans from Germany, Italy or Japan must register with the Department of Defense, was issued on January 14, 1942. Proclamation No. 2537 permitted the arrest, detention and internment of enemy aliens who violated restricted areas, such as ports, water treatment plants or even areas prone to brush fires, for the duration of the war. Roosevelt reluctantly signed Executive Order 9066, which sent many Japanese-American families into internment camps, on February 19, 1942.
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bedlamsbard · 1 year
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500 words written today -- I will probably be fairly scarce for the next few days since I am on vacation, so if you don’t see a daily progress report the next few evenings, it doesn’t mean I’m dead! Just that I am doing actual vacation things.
Snippet from Of Home Near chapter 4.  (The lights are out.)
“What are you doing with Captain Rogers?”
“Screwing him,” Natasha said bluntly, then had a moment’s concern that the term wasn’t used that way in the 1945.  It must have been, though, or at least the context made it clear, because the other woman made a noise of bemused acknowledgment.
“I tried that once. It didn’t work.”
Natasha sniffed a little, dismissive, and said, “You’re not me.”  Hopefully that meant that Steve would be able to identify her, though Natasha knew that in 1945 as well as 2018 – well, up to 2016, anyway – there had been plenty of women throwing themselves at Captain America.  He had never seemed much interested in any of them – not in the men, either, though there had been fewer of those since it had never been public knowledge that Captain America was bisexual.
Because he’s been in love with you for six years, apparently.
In 1945 it would have been Peggy Carter, of course, and that was the one woman in the SSR they knew wasn’t a matryoshka.  Well, not the only woman – the cryptanalyst Hana Korematsu, a Nisei from Washington State who had two brothers in the 442nd and the rest of her family in Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho, definitely wasn’t.  Her niece was the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2018, oddly enough, and a staunch opponent of the Sokovia Accords.
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federer7 · 2 years
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July 1942. "Rupert, Idaho. Japanese-American farm workers at an FSA camp formerly used by CCC boys (Civilian Conservation Corps). Barracks, sanitary facilities, laundry, clinic, etc." Euphemistically known at the time as the Minidoka War Relocation Center.
Photo by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration.
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cogitoergofun · 1 year
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Jon Ochi, a 75-year-old Idaho Falls man of Japanese descent, is standing in his old sign shop at 275 Chamberlain Avenue as he looks through old photos and newspaper clippings dating back more than 80 years ago.
The images contain a record of what Ochi describes as a hostile, and largely forgotten, civil rights debacle in American history. Ochi’s father, Fred, who passed away in 2007, lived through it. Jon will be telling people all about it during an event in downtown Idaho Falls this Saturday.
On Feb. 19, 1942, months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the U.S. military to gather up 120,000 people of Japanese descent, even those who were American citizens and place them in concentration camps scattered throughout the U.S.
More than 10,000 Japanese Americans were housed at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Jerome County between 1942 and 1945. It’s now recognized as a national historic site.
Fred, who was born in the U.S., was never incarcerated in a camp, but he experienced a lot of racial hostility that was common at the time.
“It’s a part of history that has not really been covered,” Jon tells EastIdahoNews.com about this time period. “I (attended school in Idaho Falls) and I used to really love history. There was never any mention of this event that was such an abuse of the U.S. Constitution.”
It’s important to remember what happened, Jon says, so that future generations never repeat it.
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ethn11winter24 · 2 months
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The Internment of the Japanese Americans During WWII
By Damian Dianda
During times of crisis, nations are capable of extreme reactions and sometimes unimaginable actions as a result of fear and prejudice. The United States is no exception as was witnessed by over 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, in February 1942, leading to the forced internment of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor. This is a moment in history that highlights the desperation and fear that Americans were feeling at the time.
This internment took the form of rounding up all Japanese Americans, most of whom were American citizens. First moving them to one of the 17 U.S. military temporary internment facilities and eventually relocating them to ten different long term camps in states such as Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. The Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, one of the ten camps, became home to thousands of Japanese Americans uprooted from their communities. Families were being tagged, numbered and shipped like livestock, stripped of their possessions with little more than a few bags per family.
“We were herded onto the train just like cattle and swine. I do not recall much conversation between the Japanese.… I cannot speak for others, but I myself felt resigned to do whatever we were told. I think the Japanese left in a very quiet mood, for we were powerless. We had to do what the government ordered.”
(Misuyo Nakamura, Santa Anita Assembly Center, Los Angeles, & Jerome Relocation Center, Arkansas)
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The documentary “Minidoka: The Measure of a Man” (2007) provides a personal perspective on the internees’ experiences, highlighting their efforts to maintain dignity, traditions, and hope despite the harsh conditions as well as highlighting the emotional and psychological toll the internment placed upon them. The FBI raided Japanese homes up and down the coast and “took many of the fathers of the families”(2:00-2:13).  Many tried to avoid the internment by placing signs on their storefronts and business announcing that they are American, however deep-seated anti-Japanese sentiment was prevalent and political powers were encouraging this sentiment with leaders such as General John DeWitt, western Defense Command stating that they are Japanese, “whether they are a citizen or not, I want none of them”(4:30). After the fathers were taken the military came under the pretense of an evacuation, removing the remaining family members allowing them to take only what they could carry, and relocating them to the camps. Their homes and businesses were seized or left abandoned.
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The living conditions in the camps were harsh as documented in Roger Daniels’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Impounded People: Japanese Americans in the Camps”. The camps were described as overpacked and lacking privacy, as many families had to exist nearly on top of one another. 
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Photographs by Dorothea Lange, found in “IMPOUNDED”, reveal the stark reality of life in the camps, capturing the desolation and disruption of normal life. In spite of these harsh conditions the people continued to live as normal of a life as they could manage by creating gardens and taking on jobs. 
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The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a grave injustice fueled by fear  discrimination and continued until the end of the war in 1945. When the internees were finally released after years of internment many had nothing to return to. It was not until 1988 that the U.S. government formally admitted that the internment was a mistake and recognized the injustice leading to reparations in the form of $20,000 to the people who were alive during the time. This step was necessary and important for the healing of the people but more so as a lesson as to what we as a nation must never let happen again. By the U.S. government documenting this atrocity and admitting fault we can learn from the mistakes that were made through fear and prejudice and educate our youth so they will not make the same mistakes again.
For further research try this:
They Called Us Enemy (George Takei Recalls Time In An American Internment Camp)
Enemy Mail (An interactive website)
And Then They Came For Us (Documentary)
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wearejapanese · 3 years
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Interview by Elaine Ikoma Ko, Special to The North American Post Artwork and photos by Michelle Kumata
Seattle native Michelle Kumata’s artistic journey has taken her across the country to New York and across the hemisphere to Brazil, not only to discover her identity and legacy but to express it through her work. By exploring her family’s Japanese-Brazilian (JB) roots, she shares her story of how, through oral histories and visual art, she has established a legacy for future generations of her family.
A shy, only child growing up, Michelle has become an accomplished artist whose work has been showcased in The Seattle Times, and in cultural centers, museums, and galleries locally and across the nation. Indeed, she shows that you can express your identity and convey strong messages to impact others through all types of creative endeavors. The North American Post interviewed Kumata by email, as excerpted below.
How and when did you discover your interest and talents in art?
I grew up an only child and I was quiet and introverted but had a vivid imagination. Art was a way to entertain myself, where I could create my own world. I wasn’t a prodigy, but I had a passion for art from an early age.
My father is a talented artist, and introduced me to art. He would draw with me when I was little. I have fond memories of the line drawings he’d create on my paper lunch bags and I was so proud to bring them to school. When I visited my grandmother’s house, I noticed several professional looking paintings on her walls. I asked who made them, and she told me my father painted them as a teen when he was at Franklin High School.
My maternal Issei (first-generation) grandparents would watch me in the Keene Apartments, which they managed, across the street from the Wonder Bread factory in the Central Area—I can still smell the baking bread. My grandmother also fueled my artistic interests by letting me paint with leftover beet juice. They were poor but resourceful, and epitomized the “mottainai” spirit, to not waste anything.
Even today, there is still something magical about art and the act of creating, especially when you start drawing and you lose sense of time and space, and get lost in your work.
What shaped your parents’ Japanese American identities?
My mother is Nisei (second generation) and her parents immigrated from Kajika, Mie-ken, Japan. My father is Sansei (third generation) as his parents were born in the U.S. and his grandparents were from Hiroshima. Both my parents were born in the Minidoka incarceration camp during World War II, so they don’t have any vivid memories of the camp experience.
My mom said that her parents never discussed the incarceration camps—it was rare for Issei and Nisei to talk about camp, especially in the 1970s and early ‘80s. For many, there was a sense of shame, anger and resentment, and also a desire to put it behind them.
My mother’s family returned to Seattle after their incarceration. Her parents managed “flop-house” (cheap hotel/boarding house) hotels in the downtown/Pioneer Square area.
There was a lot of propaganda encouraging Japanese Americans (JAs) to move away from the Pacific coast after the war. My father’s family relocated to Cleveland, Ohio, and they later returned to the Seattle area in the 1960s.
My mother grew up in a mainly Japanese-speaking household, but she only spoke a few words and phrases to me. My father grew up being cared for by his Issei grandmother, so Japanese was his first language but as he grew older, English was the main language spoken in his household. It seems that in order to fit in and assimilate, to become more American, the language was lost through their generations. I took Japanese language classes in junior high school but it wasn’t a priority for me at the time, so I do regret that I didn’t take that opportunity to learn the language.
Read more...
https://www.napost.com/2020/michelle-kumata-a-japanese-american-artist-with-brazilian-ancestral-roots/
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todaysdocument · 5 years
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Joseph Gerald Osamu Sakamoto, 80, and Mary Ann Tsuchi Sakamoto, 80, on their golden wedding anniversary at Minidoka Relocation Center, Hunt, Idaho, 12/11/1943
Series: Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority, 1942 - 1945. Record Group 210: Records of the War Relocation Authority, 1941 - 1989.
Browse nearly 4,000 photos of Japanese American relocation and internment in the Central Photographic File of the War Relocation Authority in the @usnatarchives online catalog.
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More Resources Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of Japanese American Internment at the National Archives.
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Tosh Yasutake was a Pre-Med freshman at the University of Washington when Pearl Harbor was attacked. His father “Jack” Kaichiro Yasutake was an interpreter who worked for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for the past twenty years. Despite his loyal service, the FBI immediately arrested him. When Executive Order 9066 (Feb. 19, 1942) established the west coast states as a military security zone, the rest of the Yasutake family were incarcerated in the Puyallup Assembly Center in Washington and then transferred to the War Relocation Authority camp known as Minidoka in Idaho When military recruiters came to Minidoka, Tosh was reluctant to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team because it was a segregated Japanese American unit, but in the hopes that joining the army would make it possible for his father to be reunited with the family he volunteered. This decision shocked his mother, but she understood his reasoning. Tosh went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to join the 442nd for basic training and was assigned to the Medical Company, where he became a medic. "My first time on the battlefield was almost like a dream.” Tosh continued, “Then you realize the horror of it when people start getting wounded and they start yelling, ‘Medic!’” The noise of firearms and impact of artillery explosions showered dirt and shrapnel could be heard and felt vividly, but that all faded into the background as he responded to the calls for aid. Tosh focused on assessing the wounds and tried to stop the bleeding. It was only afterwards while sitting in a foxhole that he started to shake as he recalled the intensity of the experience.
William Toshio "Tosh" Yasutake Medical Company, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, US Army
Photographed for The Go For Broke Spirit by Shane Sato
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pwlanier · 5 years
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Roger Shimomura
American, born 1939
Desert City, 2010
This view of the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho, one of the internment camps where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II, is part of a series of paintings based upon Roger Shimomura’s and his family’s experiences at Minidoka. Here the artist employs the bright colors and graphic conventions of Japanese ukiyo-e prints to draw the viewer in and then expose the brutality.
Johnson Museum of Art
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This image depicts the housing conditions of Japanese American detainees experienced in a labor camp, 1942. During WWII, the Farm Security Administration and the War Relocation Authority operated the farm labor camps that employed Japanese American laborers to harvest crops like sugar beets, which were used to make sugar, rubber, ethanol and ammunition. Laborers were recruited first from temporary assembly centers in Portland, Oregon, Puyallup, Washington, Sacramento, Calififornia, and Stockton, California. Japanese American laborers later came from behind the barbwire fences of Heart Mountain, Manzanar, Minidoka, Topaz and Tule Lake. Photo credit: Russell Lee / Library of Congress — in Rupert, Idaho.
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rabbitcruiser · 8 months
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On August 10, 1942, incarcerees arrived at the Minidoka War Relocation Center. The number of incarcerees reached 7,318 at its maximum population.
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federer7 · 2 years
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July 1942. Rupert, Idaho. "Minidoka War Relocation Center -- former CCC camp now under FSA management. Wash bowls used by the Japanese-Americans."
Photo by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration
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instapicsil2 · 5 years
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If you ever find yourself in Sacramento, stop by @crockerart. It’s a wonderful museum & I’m glad I made the time. - Of particular note was the current exhibition of artist Chiura Obata, a Japanese immigrant who arrived in America in 1903 and whose career in the arts included being an educator at Berkeley. The survey covered his entire career, but of particular interest to me was his ink drawings during his time in the Topaz internment camp in Utah. - Obata joined 120,000 other Japanese Americans in internment camps after the bombing of a Pearl Harbor throughout World War II. He captured scenes from this dark period of our nation’s history directly in his artwork. He even founded two art schools in internment camps during this time. - One piece in particular caught my eye: the internment camp captured in watercolor in moonlight. It reminded me of another modern piece for artist Roger Shimomura: “Night Watch # 7”, an American-born artist who depicts his family’s internment at Minidoka, Idaho (swipe👆➡️). - Both take a view from the distance. Obata’s seems like a tiny village caught in a fog — a deceptive view. Shimomura frames the similar housing with soldiers looking down and barbed wire in the background. The fog is lifted and we see an unflattering view of the past. - I’d never seen artworks around the subject of the Japanese-American internment before. I wish more people could view them and they were better known — and I’m glad the Crocker features them, especially now as our nation debates over the use immigration detention centers and family separation. It’s depressing to think that after seven decades we refuse to learn from the errors of our past. - I left pondering what my grandpa would think: about the art and about our nation right now. He was a child who also was in an internment camp and learning from him about it makes me sensitive to the subject today. When the U.S. government apologized in 1988, it admitted the forced relocation and imprisonment came directly from “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership”. Not much seems to have changed. https://ift.tt/2Nu6M3d
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wearejapanese · 4 years
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By Paige Cornwell
Bellevue College has apologized after one of its vice presidents altered a mural of two Japanese American children in a World War II incarceration camp by whiting out a reference to anti-Japanese agitation by Eastside businessmen in the accompanying artist description.
The art installation “Never Again Is Now,” created by Seattle artist Erin Shigaki, includes an 11-foot-tall mural of two children photographed at a California incarceration camp. The project was brought to Bellevue College last week as the school recognized the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the day President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the imprisonment of Japanese Americans.
Last Thursday, professors who helped bring the project to the school were alerted that it had been defaced, according to Professor Leslie Lum. Someone, Lum said, had removed one sentence in a paragraph about Japanese immigrants and their connection to Bellevue: “After decades of anti-Japanese agitation, led by Eastside businessman Miller Freeman and others, the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans included the 60 families (300 individuals) who farmed Bellevue.”
Bellevue College identified Gayle Colston Barge, vice president of institutional advancement, as the person who removed the reference. Photos show the reference was first whited out, then a laminated description without that sentence was taped over the original placard.
While college spokeswoman Nicole Beattie on Tuesday identified Barge as the administrator, she was not named in President Jerry Weber’s letter of apology sent Monday to the Bellevue College community.
“It was a mistake to alter the artist’s work,” Weber wrote in the letter sent to students and staff. “Removing the reference gave the impression that the administrator was attempting to remove or rewrite history, a history that directly impacts many today … Editing artistic works changes the message and meaning of the work.”
In text messages to The Seattle Times, Shigaki wrote she was “traumatized by what happened to my art – to my community’s art – on campus.”
“I feel the feelings associated with both sides of my family being forcibly removed from Seattle – erased, unimportant, disregarded, disrespected, shamed,” wrote Shigaki, whose father was born in the Minidoka War Relocation Center prison camp in Idaho.
In his letter, Weber apologized to Shigaki and to the Asian community, in particular the Japanese American community. More than a fifth of the college’s 29,120 students and its 1,508 employees are Asian and Pacific Islander, according to college demographic data.
Neither Weber nor Barge personally responded to requests for comment, and a communications consultant working with the college said they were unavailable for interviews. Barge is one of nine vice presidents at the college.
In the letter, Weber said the administrator apologized to Shigaki and attended a forum with several college groups, where she “apologized, listened, and answered questions.” Shigaki confirmed that the administrator told her she was sorry, but that no explanation was offered.
Meanwhile, the missing sentence in the description had been pasted back on top of the whited-out portion.
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notsoivorytower · 7 years
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This week’s WOC in Academia Crush Wednesday is Mitsuye Yamada, a Japanese American activist, feminist, essayist, poet, author, and former professor. Born in Japan, Yamada’s family immigrated to the U.S. where they eventually were interned at Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho. After being forced to renounce her loyalty to Japan, she was allowed to attend the University of Cincinnati in 1944. She left to attend New York University where she received a B.A. in English and Art in 1947. She also earned an M.A. in English Literature and Research from U Chicago in 1953. Her first book, “Camp Notes and Other Poems,” recounts her time spent in the internment camp during WWII. It was instrumental in breaking the silence of Japanese women. You can also find her writings in “This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings from Women of Color.” Yamada continues to explore issues of heritage, gender, feminism, racism, and violence against women. #wcw
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