Japanese American (Other Keyword)
1-10 (10 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Health and Inequality in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeologists frequently recover artifacts that speak to the health and welfare of individuals or a community they are studying. Archaeologists can use these medicinal- and healthcare-related artifacts to assess an individual or community’s quality of life. This is particularly important to investigate in the context of...
A Barrack, a Stone, and Families in Exile: A Case Study of Historic Obsidian Sourcing (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sourcing of lithic raw material often challenges preconceived notions of the relationships between people, places, and objects for time periods prior to written records. But what of historic obsidian? What can sourcing reveal about the more recent past? This paper presents the case study of a most amazing historical...
Diaspora and social networks in a WWII Japanese American Incarceration Center (2018)
The rich documentary record available to historical archaeologists creates a unique opportunity to recreate social networks in past communities. Social network data can demonstrate how communities and individuals responded to changes to existing social structures, such as those caused by diaspora. Japanese American internment represents a forced diaspora as incarceration altered existing social structures and networks. Data from the Amache Internment center in Southeastern Colorado are used to...
Friend or Foe: Constructing the National Identity of Japanese American Children in Amache, a WWII Internment Center (2015)
During World War II thousands of Japanese American families were relocated from the west coast to the interior of the United States. Internment along with rampant racism and cultural stereotyping focused public attention on individuals of Japanese descent in this county and raised questions about identity and national allegiance. Research from Amache, the internment camp located in Colorado, is used to explore issues of children’s national identity and broader understanding of the war. ...
The Gila River Japanese American Incarceration Camp: Thinking With The Past (2017)
Recent research on the World War II Japanese American Incarceration Camp at Gila River has provided both depth of knowledge to the subject and a forum for community engagement. Archaeology in particular has brought to light the diversity of experiences and the specific physical conditions of this displacement and confinement. Through a thorough examination of the context and materials of the Japanese American Incarceration, archaeological investigation can further our understanding of the...
Healing through Heritage: Collaborative Archaeology as Process (2017)
Heritage is never static, rather it is a constantly evolving set of practices, beliefs, and tangible touchstones. Collaborative archaeology sits firmly in that thicket, whether through the data we uncover, the stakeholders we engage, or even the media attention we draw. The archaeology of Amache, the site of a WWII-era Japanese American incarceration camp, is an exemplary test case for how research intertwined in a contemporary community can recast our discipline’s relationship to heritage. ...
Only Wind and Dust: Exploratory Archival and Survey Research at the Heart Mountain Root Cellars (2018)
The root cellars of Heart Mountain represent a key relationship between a community of approximately 10,000 people of Japanese descent and the barren landscape they ultimate turned into one of the most successful agricultural projects among the camps. Although most physical remains of the Heart Mountain camp have vanished, one of the incarceree-built root cellars remains largely intact, and the other, although collapsed in the 1950s, remains easily identifiable today. This paper presents the...
Race, Health, and Hygiene in a World War II Japanese American Internment Camp (2018)
During World War II, approximately 120,000 individuals of Japanese heritage were imprisoned in internment camps in the United States, with 2/3 of the prisoners holding American citizenship. This paper looks at health and hygiene related artifacts found at one such internment camp, the Kooskia Internment Camp, which was located in north Idaho and in operation from May 1943 to May 1945. Hygiene and health products mediated the racial boundaries between not only Anglo American officials and their...
Transnational Considerations At Japanese American Incarceration Camps (2017)
In 1942, all people of Japanese descent living along the western coast of the United States were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in 10 incarceration camps. Decades after the incarceration a congressional commission found that racism, wartime hysteria and a lack of leadership led to this unjust imprisonment. The scholarship surrounding the archaeology of the incarceration centers has grown over the past twenty years, with several ongoing studies conducted by universities and the...
Voices of a Community: How Oral Histories Can Guide Japanese American Archaeology (2018)
Archaeological research on the Japanese diaspora has grown considerably in the last decade but there is still plenty of room for broadening studies to understand and explore the importance, depth, and influence of the Japanese American experience. Oral histories of the Japanese American community reveal what is important to them and help us discover new perspectives that can guide and inform a much needed archaeological expansion of this field. Oral histories lead archaeologists to the people,...