Connie Y. Chiang, Nature Behind Barbed Wire: An Environmental History of the Japanese American Incarceration

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-484
Author(s):  
Clarence Jefferson Hall
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
History Of

Dispersal, Resettlement, Return

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie Y. Chiang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Cultivated Land ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Housing Shortages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Environmental Process ◽  
Growing Conditions

It would be easy to conclude with the end of the war, the closing of the camps, and the departure of the last detainees. However, the environmental history of the incarceration extended into the postwar years. This chapter explores the postwar experiences of Japanese American farmers as they left the camps toward the end of the war. Some started anew in the inland West and cultivated land there, while other tried to pick up their lives back on the Pacific Coast. In both cases, they encountered numerous environmental challenges, from unfamiliar growing conditions to neglected, overgrown land. They also confronted hostile or suspicious neighbors and land and housing shortages. Postwar resettlement was yet another environmental process to which Japanese Americans had to adapt.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie Y. Chiang
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
American West ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Us History ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
Environmental Process ◽  
Environmental Focus

While many scholars and commentators have written about the Japanese American incarceration, few have adopted an explicit environmental focus. The introduction explains why using an environmental lens is important to understanding this notorious episode in US history. Environmental history examines how the environment influenced humans and how humans interacted with and transformed the natural world. Nature Behind Barbed Wire applies this approach and demonstrates that the Japanese American incarceration was an environmental process that was connected to the lands and waters of the Pacific Coast and the camps in the inland American West. The introduction also suggests that the incarceration was part of a longer history of Japanese American exclusion and discrimination.

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