ARTchivist's Notebook: Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration
On Saturday, September 24, I had the honor of attending a ceremony at the Japanese American National Museum for the unveiling of "Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration." The Irei is a multi-faceted project commemorating the 125,266 (finally, an actual number!) Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II.
The project is essentially a list of the names of each incarcerated person, recorded in a book, a website, and as light projections that will appear at eight incarceration sites—Amache, Jerome, Heart Mountain, Manzanar, Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, and Tule Lake—in 2024.
Like the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, the project overwhelms with the sheer number of names, driving home the impact of the incarceration and moving it from the realm of vague abstraction to that of the undeniably personal. The oversize book, whose covers are embedded with ceramic plates made with earth from each of the 75 sites where Japanese Americans were imprisoned, will be on view at the Japanese American National Museum for a year.
In that time, the project's creators, led by Rev. Duncan Ryuken Williams, hope that all of the names will be "acknowledged" by the people themselves, their descendants, or community members. Acknowledgment involves stamping a mark in the book just below each name. At the ceremony, I was able to mark the name of my Auntie Irene, who I wrote about in another issue.
The names are listed in birth order, from the oldest to the youngest. It was sobering to realize that the oldest person unceremoniously uprooted from their home and shipped off to some remote prison camp was 92 years old at the time. My parents are in their 80s and the thought of them having to leave their home, sell or give away most of their belongings and begin a journey to an unknown destination with nothing but a couple of suitcases is an unimaginable cruelty. But of course it already happened to them, their parents, and grandparents. All of their names are in the book, along with most of the rest of my family. Seeing their names in print, among so many others, makes something they rarely talked about seem more real and concrete. It's an acknowledgment that it happened. To my family.
Viewing the hefty tome is a humbling experience, but I am further gratified to realize that it is possible because of archives. Japanese Americans during WWII are surely one of the most well-documented ethnic populations in the history of the United States, and it is the preservation of these records and the commitment and investment to provide access to them that undergirds a commemoration like Irei. This project is the kind of activation of the archives, to paraphrase Michelle Caswell, that brings history alive in the present (that, and Lizzo playing James Madison's crystal flute). Although my issues with the profession are many, in this moment, I am rather proud to be an archivist today.
Top image: Screenshot of the Ireizo website depicting rows of names in gray text, divided by birth years in red text. Captured October 2, 2022.
Bottom image: Circular mark below my aunt's name "Michiko Irene Yamamoto" among other names in the Ireicho book. Photograph by Oliver Wang.
Thanks for reading! If you have any comments or questions about this issue, please feel free to get in touch. Or follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter @SharonMizota.
ARTchivist's Notebook is an occasional newsletter musing on the intersection of archives, art, and social justice by me, Sharon Mizota, DEI metadata consultant and art writer.
I help museums, archives, libraries, and media organizations transform and share their metadata to achieve greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. Contact me to discuss your metadata project today.