Lake County Library District

Library hosts exhibit and film on Japanese internment in U.S. during WWII

LAKEVIEW, Ore.—December 22, 2017--Architecture of Internment: the Build-up to Wartime Incarceration exhibit comes to Lake County January 12 through February 13, 2018. These free, public events also include a screening of the short film What It Means to be Free. The exhibit and film will be in available in Lakeview, Paisley, and Christmas Valley as well as taken to area high schools. Architecture of Internment is a Graham Street Productions exhibit presented by Lake County Library District and the Rural Organizing Project.
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This traveling exhibit highlights the role of Oregonians in the decision to incarcerate Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants. Over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were incarcerated during World War II. Personal letters and proclamations from Oregonians to Governor Sprague in 1941 and 1942, advocating for the exclusion and incarceration of Oregonian Japanese Americans, as well as blueprints of potential "Assembly Center" and "Relocation Camp" locations such as racetracks and fairgrounds, and letters from Japanese Americans expressing their outrage about the injustice of internment will be on display.
 
What It Means to be Free is a video interview with former Oregon Poet Laureate Lawson Inada. As a child, Inada was one of the youngest persons sent to internment camps during World War II. The experience has been a major influence on his poetry. Each film screening will be followed by a discussion.
 
In Christmas Valley, the exhibit opens at the Community Hall on January 20, 2018, at 1:30 PM for public viewing with the film screening at 3:30 PM. In Paisley, the exhibit opens at the Paisley School cafeteria on January 22, 2018 at 8:30 AM with the film screening at 10:30 AM. In Lakeview, the exhibit will be on display at the Main Library from February 5-9, 2018, and the film screening will be at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, February 7, 2018 in the meeting room.
 
For questions about the program or more information about the library, contact Library Director Amy Hutchinson at 541-947-6019 or amyh@lakecountylibrary.org. For information on Rural Organizing Project, visit http://www.rop.org/. For information on Graham Street Productions, visit https://www.grahamstreetproductions.com/.