Arkansas exhibits
show life of interned
Japanese Americans

The previews lead up to the Life
Interrupted National Conference

LITTLE ROCK > Exhibits detailing the experiences of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II were unveiled this week, giving a glimpse at life for thousands imprisoned for being of Japanese descent.

The previews are the first in a series in the days leading up to this weekend's Life Interrupted National Conference in Little Rock, expected to draw about 900 surviving Japanese Americans and their families. The four-day conference will be the first time in 60 years that the state has paid large-scale tribute to Japanese-American citizens who were held at two southeast Arkansas camps during World War II.

One exhibit, called "America's Concentration Camps: Remembering the Japanese-American Experience," was previewed at the Statehouse Convention Center. Photographs and displays depict life during a time of forced imprisonment for about 120,000 Japanese Americans in 11 camps around the country, including two in Arkansas at Jerome and Rohwer, which held 16,000 detainees.

From 1942 to 1946, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated to camps in Arkansas, Colorado and Texas from other parts of the country -- usually the West Coast and Hawaii.

The title, "America's Concentration Camps," is explained as part of the exhibit by saying a concentration camp is a place where people are imprisoned because of who they are, instead of for committing crimes. It outlines differences between Nazi Germany's concentration camps and the American versions, where people were imprisoned but not necessarily tortured or killed.

"Despite the differences, all (concentration camps) had one thing in common; the people in power removed a minority group from the general population, and the rest of society let it happen," a display at the exhibit says.

The exhibit started in 1994 at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and was adapted to the traveling version four years later. It is on display at Arkansas' Statehouse Convention Center through Nov. 28.

The Life Interrupted conference aims to educate people about the internment camps, which have been largely neglected in recent depictions of history and is the product of a partnership between the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Japanese American National Museum.

The second exhibit, previewed Monday at the Cox Creative Arts Center, showcases the artwork of one of the Japanese-American residents of both Arkansas camps. It features 44 of Henry Sugimoto's oil paintings, the first dozen of which are beautiful landscapes from France, California and New Mexico that Sugimoto painted before his internment, said Kristine Kim, the curator of the exhibit.