While reading Chapter 12 in Everyday America about the racial landscapes I gave some thought to the few ethnic neighborhoods in Boise’s past and those that may be developing as refugees are placed in certain Boise neighborhoods. This explanation of racialized landscapes from page 203 brought to mind another Idaho connection: “American cultural landscapes that are particularly implicated in racist practice and the perpetuation of (or challenge to) racist social relations.” After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and we entered World War II, Idaho became home to the Minidoka War Relocation Center, a.k.a. an internment camp complete with barbed wire fences and watch towers.
If anyone is planning a trip to Burley to see the wagon ruts swing off the highway east of Jerome and Twin Falls to a little place called Eden. On some maps the site of the camp is referred to as Hunt Station. I’ve heard a few stories on Boise State Public Radio in the last several years about the camp site. It made the news partly because it was made a National Historic site which is overseen by the National Park Service. More recently there has been some controversy because a cattle feeding operation wants to build a facility about 1 ½ miles from the site. Ironically, the camp held about 13,000 internees and the feed lot is proposed to handle about 13,000 head of cattle. Those opposing the permit feel that smell and noise would greatly effect the experience of visitors to the camp. Last fall I heard that the decision to grant the permit was upheld in court.
Coincidentally, last fall I picked up a novel called Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. The main characters in the book lived in the already segregated Chinese and Japanese sections
of Seattle, Washington at the start of WWII. Part of the story centers on the relocation of the residents of the Japanese section to camps, many specifically to Minidoka. If I remember correctly 2/3 of those interned were American citizens by birth. What was barren, southern Idaho desert landscape…very cold in winter and very hot in summer became for the years 1942 to 1945 a racial project. Now it is an area about which decisions have to be made as to what is valuable to preserve.