As part of our WINTER READ and focus on the Minidoka National Historic Site and Japanese American incarceration during World War II, The Community Library welcomes Hanako Wakatsuki, Chief of Interpretation at Minidoka National Historic Site.
The evening will feature a screening of Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp, produced by North Shore Productions for the National Park Service. The 30-minute film tells the story of a group of Americans and their incarceration by the U.S. government in the High Desert of southern Idaho, purely on the basis of race. The film also explores the lasting impact of incarceration on Japanese-Americans, through decades of shame and silence, before the community took a stand for redress, and examines the relevance of their story for civil rights today.
A Q&A with Hanako Wakatsuki will follow the screening.
The Community Library’s 2020 WINTER READ explores the history and effects today of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II. Throughout February and March we invite the community to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford’s novel that focuses on two families, of Chinese and Japanese ancestry, who experience discrimination, incarceration, loss, and friendship during the early war years in Seattle. The novel features the Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho’s own site of war-time incarceration where more than 9,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned from 1942-45. The site is located just eighty miles south of Ketchum. Join us as we engage in conversation around this important regional and national civil liberties history.
The 2020 Winter Read has been generously sponsored by the Spur Community Foundation and Carlyn Ring.
