| Internment
camps subject of first lecture
This Thursday night at 7:00, the Historical Museum at St. Gertrude presents Dr. Priscilla Wegars, who will present h  er
latest book: Imprisoned in Paradise: Japanese Internee Road Workers at
the World War II Kooskia Internment Camp. She describes the local camp
that held approximately 265 so-called "enemy aliens" of Japanese ancestry.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese U.S. residents
became suspected of potential sabotage. Those at Kooskia had volunteered
for transfer from other camps and earned wages for helping build the Lewis-Clark
Highway, now Highway 12. They found this area to be a welcome change from
the barbed wire of other detention centers. One internee called it "… a
paradise in mountains!"
Dr. Wegars is a professor at the University of Idaho and is a Research Associate and Volunteer Curator in the Laboratory of Anthropology. Her research interests include historical archaeology of Asian Americans in the West, specifically Chinese American and Japanese American sites, artifacts, and history; Chinese women, specifically Polly Bemis; and 19th and 20th century American material culture. She is editor of Hidden Heritage: Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese. This lecture is the first of the 11th Annual Fall Lecture Series at the Historical Museum at St. Gertrude. The lectures are free and will take place at Spirit Center. For more information visit www.HistoricalMuseumatStGertrude.org. |
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