Shadow Traces

Abstract

Shadow Traces examines little-known visual archives attached to four historical groups of Japanese/American and indigenous women that include the Ainu who participated at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, early 20th century Japanese picture brides, Nisei women in World War II internment camps, and World War II Japanese war brides. Less historiography than a critical reflection on the meaning of visual representations within the intersectional context of empire, indigeneity, migration, war, and racism, the book guides us through various photograph archives, identifying their formations as well as our own investments in these public and private collections and what they can especially yield for feminist and Asian American studies readers. With each of these groups, their photographic images not only function as key components of their unique archives, but invite us to consider their visual histories in new ways. Photographs play an important role in how we think about documenting the present and its relationship to the past—and vice versa. Creef carefully reveals the desires we have for archives, documentation, and photographs, especially when our desires themselves guide our memories and understandings of history. Shadow Traces builds on and expands on Creef’s earlier work by focusing on the representation of Japanese, Japanese American, and indigenous Ainu women as explicit subjects of photography.