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“What an Ungodly Place to Meet”: Tales from Camp Toilets
In stories of the forced removal and incarceration, certain types of stories recur. There is the shock of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent exclusion orders, the preparations for removal including…
Sexual Violence, Silence, and Japanese American Incarceration
In recent months, an outpouring of stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault has sparked long overdue conversations around the prevalence of sexual violence and the policies, attitudes, and silences…
Photo Essay: Fairground Detention Facilities
Fairgrounds in Fresno, Merced, Pomona, Puyallup, Salinas, Stockton, Tulare, and Turlock have a dark common history. Seventy five years ago, they served as sites for the temporary detention of Japanese…
Picturing Incarceration: The WWII Sketches and Paintings of Kango Takamura
Photographs and moving images of World War II incarceration have helped keep memories of that era alive for decades. But since cameras were largely forbidden inside the camps, few images…
What “Back to School” Looked Like in World War II Concentration Camps
“Nineteen forty-two, how full of events it has been. So many turning points, crisises [sic], days of anxiety and disappointment, yet some happy moments, too. It was like a goodbye to…
A “doubly strange and bewildering day:” Views of July 4th From Behind Barbed Wire
Ah, the Fourth of July, that special day when we celebrate the wealthy colonialists and slaveowners who birthed our nation by drinking several tons of “America” and making stuff go…