Our main target today was to find Minidoka National Historic Site (it is pretty remote). This was one of the 10 locations where Japanese Americans were incarcerated at the onset of WW2. We have been to Manzanar several times but never any of the other sites. It was another very windy day, and we could not imagine what it was like for these families to have to move to these remote areas - mostly from the Washington & Oregon coasts.
Unfortunately they were closed for the season, scheduled to open Memorial Day weekend so we were not able to go into the visitor center. Clearly this is still a work in progress, still far behind the extent of work at Manzanar, but you kind of get the sense of what it might have been like when they first arrived. The photo above shows one of the 8 guard houses (a recreation built by students of Boise State University) that surrounded the barbed wired fenced in area - although never formally manned, a clear reminder that they were incarcerated.
Historic sites like these are a necessity, and a reminder of what racism and mass hysteria can lead to.
By the way, we thought they did a great job architecturally of the Visitor Center. It was clearly designed to resemble the tar paper structures that must have been what many of the habitats were made of back when the Japanese were incarcerated there.
About a half hour further into our drive to Boise we happened upon another National Monument and some State Parks. Hagerman Fossile Beds National Monument houses the fossils found in this area of the "Hagerman Horses" - early ancestors of horses as we know them today (among other fossils). We also stopped at nearby Malad Gorge State Park for a view of the Snake River.
Two more hours and we arrived in Boise! A happy ending to the day, we were able to meet Dia's mom Julia for the first time! Dia is Jacob's girlfriend, and they all happened to be in town for a wedding - Jake & Dia had already been taken to the airport for return to Seattle, but Julia is staying an extra night to go to Yellowstone tomorrow with a friend. We had a great time getting to know one another over charcuterie at our Airbnb :) We look forward to reuniting again in just over a week at her place in Tacoma.
Tomorrow we explore Boise!
GOOD NIGHT
Wow! So glad you stopped at Minidoka. Patt's mother was interned there, when she was a young girl, with her family. We haven't been there ourselves, but maybe one day we will make it there. Patt's father and uncles were interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Her Uncle Bacon Sakatani and her dad, helped move one of the Heart Mountain barracks to Little Tokyo in LA for the Japanese American museum. Thanks for honoring these folks! Beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteHi Russ! I haven't been thinking about checking for comments and just saw this...yes, Minidoka was a powerful visit, I hope you guys can go there one day. Our friend in Seattle's mom was there as well - maybe they knew one another!!!! I LOVE that Patt's uncle's name is "Bacon"???
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