For just over three
years, between August 1942 and October 1945, more than 10,000
Japanese Americans were unwilling residents of the Minidoka War
Relocation Authority Center in southern Idaho (HCN, 10/8/01:
Lessons of an intolerant past).
This fall, the
Sun Valley Center for the Arts will host Whispered
Silences, a multidisciplinary exploration of internment
in Idaho and the West. The exhibition will include Joan Myers’
photographs of the 10 internment camps across the West as they
appear today; a collection of letters from interned children to
Clara Breed, a children’s librarian in San Diego; and a
three-dimensional, barracks-like representation of an internment
camp by Bob Dix. A documentary series, lectures, and art classes,
all addressing fear and intolerance, will complement the
exhibits.
Heather
Crocker, director of the Education and Humanities Programs at the
Sun Valley Center, says the primary aim of the exhibition is
education. “Our job is to give people as many points of entry into
this difficult subject matter as possible.”
The
exhibition runs through Dec. 8 and is the first in a two-part
series, Mirroring History: The Gates of Hate in the 20th
Century. The second part of the series, scheduled for the
winter, will focus on the Holocaust. For information, call the Sun
Valley Center for the Arts at 208/726-9491, or check online at
www.sunvalleycenter.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Remembering internment in Idaho.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
