For just over three years, between August 1942 and October 1945, more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were unwilling residents of the Minidoka War Relocation Authority Center in southern Idaho (HCN, 10/8/01: Lessons of an intolerant past).
This fall, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts will host Whispered Silences, a multidisciplinary exploration of internment in Idaho and the West. The exhibition will include Joan Myers’ photographs of the 10 internment camps across the West as they appear today; a collection of letters from interned children to Clara Breed, a children’s librarian in San Diego; and a three-dimensional, barracks-like representation of an internment camp by Bob Dix. A documentary series, lectures, and art classes, all addressing fear and intolerance, will complement the exhibits.
Heather Crocker, director of the Education and Humanities Programs at the Sun Valley Center, says the primary aim of the exhibition is education. “Our job is to give people as many points of entry into this difficult subject matter as possible.”
The exhibition runs through Dec. 8 and is the first in a two-part series, Mirroring History: The Gates of Hate in the 20th Century. The second part of the series, scheduled for the winter, will focus on the Holocaust. For information, call the Sun Valley Center for the Arts at 208/726-9491, or check online at www.sunvalleycenter.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Remembering internment in Idaho.
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