Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment (Volume 3)

Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West

by Todd Stewart, Karen J. Leong, Natasha Egan (Contributor)

When the U.S. government incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans as “domestic enemy aliens” during World War II, most other Americans succumbed to their fears and endorsed the confinement of their fellow citizens. Ten “relocation centers” were scattered across the West. Today, in the crumbling foundations, overgrown yards, and material artifacts of these former internment camps, we can still sense the injustices suffered there.

Placing Memory is a powerful visual record of the internment. Featuring Todd Stewart’s stunning color photographs of the sites as they appear today, the book provides a rigorous visual survey of the physical features of the camps—roads, architectural remains, and monuments—along with maps and statistical information.

Also included in this volume—juxtaposed with Stewart’s modern-day images—are the black-and-white photographs commissioned during the 1940s by the War Relocation Authority. Thoughtful essays by Karen Leong, Natasha Egan, and John Tateishi provide provocative context for all the photographs.

Genres: History

132 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2008

About the author

Todd Stewart is an illustrator and a self-taught screen printer in Montreal, Quebec. Trained as a landscape architect and urban planner, his images are culled from experience and surroundings, and reflect a search for meaning in new and familiar places. The Wind and the Trees is his first book as both author and illustrator. He is also the illustrator of Flow, Spin, Grow and See You Next Year.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The recent photos of the internment sites, most of them
long-abandoned, reset the stage so that we see what was
there--terrain and views of nature--before the camps were
built and occupied. The book includes some official
photos (mostly upbeat) put out by the government at the time,
and they provide a somewhat surreal contrast to the new pictures.
A few photos by an internee who smuggled in a forbidden camera
offer another perspective. The content--text and photos--is
well organized. The book deserved more careful proofreading.