In his examination of the intersection between \u201cevent\u201d and \u201chistory” in his essay “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Hayden White argues that the moral presence concerning the way in which the world operates ultimately forms the narrative to write history. To formulate such notion, White states, \u201chistorical self-consciousness, the kind of consciousness capable of imagining the need to represent reality as a history, is conceivable only in terms of its interest in law, legality, legitimacy, and so on\u201d (17). In essence, our idea of history is constructed by a slew of events. We relate these events through a cause-and-effect relationship that we base on our idea of how the world works.<\/p>\n
Taking this notion into account, we can use this idea of narrative forming history in the context of archives. Specifically, I chose to examine the Collection of Material about Japanese American Internment, 1929-1956<\/a> because as someone with Japanese ancestry, I felt that this archive is the one that resonates most with me. I also thought the narrative that I would construct from the material would possibly be different from someone who does not have a similar background, thus showcasing the implications of White\u2019s original argument.<\/p>\n The collection consists of materials from the War Relocation Authority (WRA) under the U.S. Department of the Interior. Materials include pamphlets, press releases, yearbooks, speeches, theses, and more writings regarding the conditions in the camps, detailing of the internment process, Japanese relocation after war, and more. The first two boxes containing the WRA material are organized chronologically and thus eases the process in formulating a narrative because it can follow a trajectory based on a timeline. I would begin in the Spring of 1942, detailing the initial conditions of internment and Japanese relocation, signifying World War II as the cause of such occurrences. Initially, conditions seem are relatively unknown but progressively show to only grow worse, denoted by the \u201cTule Lake incident\u201d and \u201cdemonstration at Tule Lake Hospital\u201d of the Semi-Annual report of 1943. It only continues to worsen as Tule Lake is shut down entirely in 1946. Moreover, addresses from army officials calling for the \u201chumane treatment of Japanese Americans\u201d demonstrate how the conditions of inhabitants of the camps had grown to inhumane in their execution. Pamphlets detailing anti-Japanese sentiment show the ways in which this treatment was able to persist because of how citizens were taught to view such people.<\/p>\n Other narratives are able to be constructed from the materials in this collection as well, such as ones construed from the yearbooks of the Manzanar camps. Historical narratives regarding the people who inhabited such camps and their daily routines could be constructed from the names and subsequent accounts.<\/p>\n Moreover, I think the larger narratives that can be constructed from the materials could be surrounding the story of Japanese-American life post-WWII. Much of the material is focused on life within the camps and the lives of those who inhabited them. Ironically, this narrative is generally muted in typical conversations of today. This material has the ability to explain part of the silenced story. I do not think this collection has the ability to explain everything from my constructed narrative, however, because much of the material is from WRA (a government agency) and thus most likely does not showcase the true horrendous conditions that Japanese-Americans had to go through. I might remedy this by looking to the first-person accounts as well as other signifiers such as the call for \u201chumane treatment\u201d by Sergeant Ben Kuroki that demonstrate the horrible events that were occurring during this time period. I would potentially fill the gaps within the narrative by stories passed down from my ancestors; however, it should be noted that even most of these stories have failed to continue existing due to their silencing from government urge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his examination of the intersection between \u201cevent\u201d and \u201chistory” in his essay “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Hayden White argues that the moral presence concerning … Continue reading “Week 2: Finding Aid for the Collection of Material about Japanese American Internment”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}