Advocates say 400 turbines will threaten the sanctity of the historic Idaho location that served as an incarceration camp during WWII Mary Abo is in her 80s now, but can recite her childhood address on command: block six, barrack four, apartment C. Abo is a survivor of Minidoka, one of several camps that the U.S. […]
A ‘community study’ of Minidoka
AN EYE FOR INJUSTICE: ROBERT C. SIMS AND MINIDOKA Edited by Susan M. Stacy (Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University Press, 2020, 246 pp., $21.95, paperback) During the May 1995 symposium that Mike Mackey organized in Powell, Wyo. on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans at the nearby Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Mackey toured Bob Sims […]
CAAMFest presents nuanced personal stories
The Center for Asian American Media’s CAAMFest 2019 returns to the Bay Area May 9, and includes venues in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. The following short films screen in San Francisco. ‘Period Girl’Any number of documentaries could be made about Nadya Okamoto. At 21 years old, she’s already co-founded a nonprofit with more than […]
Nikkei history meets multi-generational family memoir
LOOKING AFTER MINIDOKA: AN AMERICAN MEMOIR By Neil Nakadate (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2013, 236 pp., $20, paperback) Although its publisher markets “Looking after Minidoka” as a “memoir,” this volume can lay equal claim to being a “history.” It is, in fact, the superlative fusion of these two genres that accounts for the most […]
IN REMEMBRANCE: Website documents wartime incarceration, one photo at a time
Inspired by the accounts of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II, photographer Andy Frazer now shares their stories through profiles on his Website, Kioku: Portraits of Japanese-American Internment. Kioku means remembrance in Japanese. Frazer interviews the former inmates and shoots black-and-white images that he then displays online at www.gorillasites.com/kioku/default.htm. “The original goal […]
The Yellow Peril Revisited
Roger Shimomura is known for using his art to challenge racism and stereotypes and to explore Japanese American identity. Since the 1970s, the Kansas-based artist has been combining the concepts and aesthetics of pop art with the look of ukiyo-e (Japanese wood-block printing), juxtaposing iconic American imagery to make bold statements about the way we […]
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