Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment (Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West)

A photographic perspective on the Japanese American internment camps

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.