Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment by Todd Stewart, Natasha Egan, Karen J. Leong, John Tateishi

Abstract

districts as an outgrowth of numerous, con flictingdemands for the samewater resources and tribal treatyrights,orWilliam Robbins's discussion of similar issues along theKlamath inhis recentLandscapes ofConflict,might also better informHussa's stories involving the Klamath water crisis of 2001 and theKlamath River Coalition ofConservation Districts. Hussa focuses on the Walker and McKay familystoriesonly in the latter half of thebook, which veers into disconnected paragraphs critiquing federal land managers and legal decisions. Hussa only vaguely linkstheseasides to the stories and concerns of the McKay and Walker families and theirvalues. Earlier chap ters that focus exclusively on Euro-American families more closely integrate their stories with policy discussions. Methodologically, Hussa's book is strongest where itfollows closely Studs Terkel's formula inWorking. Terkel's classic study introduced each narrative voice with a briefbackstory and thenused each person's words to tellhis or her own story inways that revealed producerist notions of value and virtue in theworkplace while also illuminating underlying class and racial tensions.Hussa's stories similarly ideal ize physical labor as a transcendent ethical force and teaching tool, but she selects narra tives thatoveremphasize ruralityas a unifying identitywhile underplaying class, racial, and gender difference as components of identity in rural landscapes. Hussa might have paid more attention tohow ranch owners differ in their priorities for educating their children, as compared with ranch employees or ranch tenants.The author also oversimplifies urban landscapes as virtue-less, crime-ridden places fromwhich to escape. Despite these concerns,Blake's photos place faces, animals, and work in the landscapes thatHussa's stories describe, and the stories lend identity and meaning to those uncom monly effective images, none more so than the photo of Joe and Gabe in earnest "rodeo conference" amid Hussa's evocative narrative describing Gabe's harrowing journey from Haitian orphan to easternOregon rancher (p. 120). Linked images and stories like this one make thisbook an important contribution to amore nuanced understanding of ourmodern American West. Max G. Geier Western Oregon University PLACING MEMORY:A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT byTodd Stewart essays byNatasha Egan and Karen J.Leong afterword bylohnTateishi University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2008. Photographs, maps. 132pages. $34.95 cloth. In a recentwork, JasmineAlinder reminds readers of the historical importance of Japa nese American incarceration in World War II. Although writing about two other photogra phers, herwords are appropriate in assessing the significanceof thisvolume byTodd Stewart as well. She referred to thework of such art istsas important because photographs of the incarceration sitesremindus of "thepossibility that thememory of incarceration itself might vanish if it isnot nurtured or remade." In her view, images of the camps "preserve ... the memory of those sitesand the injustices com mitted there" (Moving Images: Photography and the Japanese American Incarceration). Stewart'swork provides additional strengthto thephotographic recordofthat period and isa worthy addition to the literature. He apparently believes, as didAnsel Adams, thatan important role forthe landscape photographer is"to show the land and the skyas the settingsforhuman activity"(Adams toDavid McAlpin, November 4,1938, in Mary Street Alinder andAndrea Gray Stillman, eds.,AnselAdams: Lettersand Images, 1916-1984). 488 OHQ vol. 107, no. 3 Stewart isan assistant professor of photog raphy at theUniversity ofOklahoma, and his professional work has focused increasinglyon the question: Does place hold memory? His images presented in thisbook readily confirm to readers/viewers that they do indeed. This volume is the culmination of a decade-long effort to explore this question by visiting and photographing all ten of the "Relocation Centers" of the War Relocation Authority, the agency responsible for themanagement of the camps. He presentsmore than fifty of his own photographs and adds about threedozen from thework of the War Relocation Author ityphotographers, with the latterproviding scenes of the incarceration centerswhen they were populated. Although this juxtaposition does not achieve as strongan effectas it might, since theyare rarelypaired by locale, itprovides any reader unfamiliar with thathistory away to "read" Stewart'swork. Several of thephoto graphs are fold-out displays of the landscape at several of the camps, and these are,without exception, dramatic depictions of thoseplaces. One inparticular stands out, thatbeing a four page fold-out landscape of Heart Mountain, in Wyoming. Although Placing Memory has much to recommend it...