A Pilgrimage to the Japanese American Internment Camps of World War II

Suny Geneseo Campus

Japanese American internment notice, April 1, 1942, from the United States Department of the Interior, part of an exhibit scheduled for the Kinetic Gallery Nov. 4 - Dec. 9 in the MacVittie College Union.

Two months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned in ten concentration camps located in remote and desolate parts of the country.

Seventy years after the last camp closed, Rochesterians Notch and Margaret Miyake traveled to all ten of them to honor the sacrifices of the internees and to learn from their experience. They have produced an exhibit documenting their journey and raising issues that are increasingly relevant as the nation struggles to respond to terrorism and illegal immigration.

At 4:00 p.m. on November 4, Notch Miyake will give a talk in the SUNY Geneseo College Union Hunt Room, which will be followed with an opening reception in the College Union Kinetic Gallery. All members of the SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, and Rochester communities are welcome.

Margaret Miyake’s photographs document the story of the Miyakes' trip and the silent witnesses - the camps and the detention centers.

"A Pilgrimage to the Japanese American Internment Camps of World War II" is presented by the SUNY Geneseo Asian / Asian American Studies and Programming, with the generous support of GCAB’s Kinetic Gallery and the SUNY Geneseo Office of Multicultural Events and Programming.

The exhibit will be open to visitors from Nov. 4 - Dec. 9.

For more information, contact Professor Randy Barbara Kaplan, 245-5806 or kaplanr@geneseo.edu.