Capturing the 80th Anniversary of Minidoka
A few weeks ago I made the drive down to Jerome for a very special event put on by the Friends of Minidoka at the Minidoka National Historic Site. They were hosting an 80th-anniversary event commemorating the incarceration of more than 10,000 American citizens with Japanese heritage that took place during World War II. I’ve known about Minidoka for quite some time now through various books I’ve read on the topic (“Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet,” was a winter read with the Community Library some years ago and I highly recommend it!).
When Friends of Minidoka’s Executive Director, Robyn Achilles, called me up and asked if I was available to photograph the event I jumped at the opportunity. The event was fantastic with tours of some of the outside grounds (it was super windy that day so the full outside tour had to be trimmed down), time spent at the visitor center, as well as speeches from survivors, descendants, locals, and park staff. The whole experience including meeting and listening to the survivors and their descendants made it easy to imagine the heartbreak of having your family experience something similar.
I also really enjoyed Jim Jones speech (Idaho Attorney General (1983–1991) and Idaho Supreme Court (2004 - 2015). Jim grew up in the 1950s, the camp wasn’t active anymore but many of his neighbors and friends had been held at the camp in the 1930’s. His close relationships with his neighbors and hearing their stories influenced how he viewed politics and helped shaped his political identity. In his speech he talked about the history of our state, how we need to learn from these things so we don’t repeat our past mistakes, and how important it is to teach people about places like Minidoka .
There is SO much history in Idaho. Some that we can be proud of, and others, like Minidoka, that we must all learn from. I feel like this piece of our American history doesn’t get nearly as much coverage as it deserves. If you don’t have a chance to go down to Minidoka and see the incarceration camp for yourself I highly recommend checking out the documentary, Betrayed: Surviving an American Concentration Camp. Betrayed is a fantastic and comprehensive look at the history of Minidoka (as well as some of the other American-Japanese Internment Camps) that were established in 1942 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which ordered the initial forced removal of 112,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast. You can learn more about Minidoka specifically and the history surrounding it on their website as well!
