In Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp, Teresa Tamura documents one of ten such camps, the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Jerome County, Idaho. Her documentation includes artifacts made in the camp as well as the story of its survivors, uprooted from their homes in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. The essays are supplemented by 180 black-and-white photographs and interviews that fuse present and past. Tamura began her project after President Bill Clinton designated part of the Minidoka site as the 385th unit of the National Park Service. Her work furthers the tradition of socially inspired documentary photojournalism, illuminating the cultural, sociological, and political significance of Minidoka. Ultimately, her book reminds us of what happens when fear, hysteria, and racial prejudice subvert human rights and shatter human lives.

Minidoka : an American concentration camp

Tamura, Teresa

Caxton Press

2013

2003.500.4447