{"id":1299,"date":"2017-10-16T12:22:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T19:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/?p=1299"},"modified":"2017-10-16T12:22:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T19:22:50","slug":"blog-post-2-activities-and-entertainment-at-heart-mountain-relocation-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/2017\/10\/16\/blog-post-2-activities-and-entertainment-at-heart-mountain-relocation-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post 2 – Activities and Entertainment at Heart Mountain Relocation Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

During World War II, Japanese Americans in the United States were forced to leave their homes and relocate to internment camps, one of which was the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. The archival collection titled \u201c Guide to the Activities and Entertainment at Heart Mountain Relocation Center Photographs, 1942-1943\u201d contains photographs of folklore performances, dances, sumo wrestling, farms, games, outdoor scenes, and more that were taken from the lives of the incarcerated Japanese Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the photographs, we can get a sense of how the Japanese Americans spent their lives in internment camps during WWII. Despite being forcibly taken away from their homes to living in conditions comparable to those of a prison, the Japanese Americans still managed to live positively in unison and even maintained and celebrated their Japanese culture through traditional activities and entertainment, such as the folklore performances, dance celebrations, sumo wrestling competitions, games of Goh, calligraphy writing, as well as celebration of Western holidays like Christmas. We can infer that the Japanese Americans highly value traditional Japanese forms of entertainment, which play a significant part of their daily lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Basing entirely on the records from this collection, we can only see the times of celebration and entertainment, which does not give a complete view of the lives of Japanese Americans in internment camps. After all, the Japanese Americans were living in incarcerated, harsh, and extremely cramped conditions, yet no other emotions or less \u201cjolly\u201d or \u201ccelebratory\u201d moments were photographed. We can\u2019t get a perspective on the possible sadness and discomfort the Japanese Americans could have felt being confined in the camps. Moreover, photographs of the camp in the collection were mainly taken from afar, so we are unable to see how they Japanese Americans inside of the camps.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To address the gaps in the historical narrative of Japanese Americans, photographs of their lives other than times of entertainment, such as of the cramped living spaces, daily forms of labor, etc could contribute to providing a more complete view of life in internment camps. Other possible, useful forms of sources would be diary writings, interviews from internees, and articles written on the incarceration of Japanese Americans. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, despite only capturing activities and entertainment, I still think this is a very valuable set of photographs of the lives of Japanese Americans living in the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. It documented many activities that were rich in traditional Japanese culture that persisted in the harsh conditions of internment camps during World War II.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During World War II, Japanese Americans in the United States were forced to leave their homes and relocate to internment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}