Idaho's Japanese Internment Camp in Limbo
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Feb. 19, 2009
Last year's closing ceremony at Minidoka
Credit: NPS
Today, on the National Day of Remembrance for the Japanese American Internment, a group dedicated to protecting an internment camp in Idaho is fighting the construction of a dairy facility just a mile outside its gates.
Last fall, Jerome County approved a confined animal feeding operation near Minidoka National Historic Site, where 13,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated during World War II. County officials refused to consider the comments of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service prior to approval. Both the Trust and the park service warned of potential negative impacts on the camp from the dairy operation.
In response, a coalition filed a lawsuit against the county last November. A judge will hear the case this spring. The coalition includes members of the Dimond family, which has owned a nearby farm since the late 1940s; Wayne Slone, a neighbor's guardian; Idaho Concerned Area Residents for the Environment; Preservation Idaho; the Japanese American Citizens League; the Idaho Rural Council; Friends of Minidoka, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
"We're very hopeful that we can get the commissioners to look at this again," says Emily Momohara, chair of Friends of Minidoka, which today begins a fundraising campaign to cover the group's legal fees. "It's a National Park, so it belongs to all of us. It's telling a part of our history that's important to remember, especially on this Day of Remembrance."
The lawsuit will likely stall construction of the feedlot until 2011.
In the meantime, the National Park Service is designing exhibits for the site, which was designated a National Monument in 2001. It estimates that 80,000 people will visit Minidoka every year once it establishes a visitors center there. Thousands of former internees and their families make a pilgrimage to Minidoka each June; the site is also open year-round to visitors who can wander the grounds with a map.
"We have great hopes for it as funding becomes available," says Dena Easterday, acting superintendent of the site. "It's going to take time."
Twin Falls resident Janet Keegan, treasurer of Friends of Minidoka, says her father, now 92, still discusses his internment. "We grew up learning about it from my parents, but it wasn't something that my mother wanted to talk about. So many of them just want to put it behind them," Keegan says. "It's the third generation, the one that didn't really live through it, that is trying to educate the public."
Read more about Mindoka, which the National Trust named one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2007.
Donate to protect Minidoka from a nearby feedlot
For more photos, stories, and tips, subscribe to the print edition of Preservation magazine.
Subscribe to the Today's News RSS feed
Comments
