Sciences & Humanities Under the Dome

a free public lecture series sponsored by the Levy & Naik Endowment.

The Archaeology of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II

Presented by Dr. Stacey Camp (Michigan State University Department of Anthropology)

During World War II thousands of US Citizens and US permanent residents of Japanese decent were forcibly relocated to camps in the Mountain West of the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Kooskia (KOOS-key) Internment Camp, located in Idaho, was maintained by Immigration and Naturalization Services and housed 250 non-citizen men of Japanese decent who were forced to leave their homes.  While housed at Kooskia, which had previously been a CCC camp and a federal prison camp, these men participated in the construction of the Lewis & Clark Highway. Dr. Stacey Camp led archaeological excavations at this site to better understand what daily life was like for the men of Kooskia during their interment, and the impact this experience had on them and on their families.

Dr. Stacey Camp is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University, where she leads their Campus Archaeology Program.  She received her PhD from Stanford University in 2009, and her research has focused on historical archaeology of migrant communities and the way their identities impact their perceptions of consumerism and material culture. Recently she and other MSU colleagues received a National Park Service Grant to digitize collections from the Kooskia Archaeology project to make them available online to the public.

Sciences & Humanities Under the Dome is a free public lecture series supported by the Levy & Naik Endowment. We welcome all members of the community to join us in the planetarium for these research lectures!

Seating in the planetarium is limited, and reservations are required. If you sign up for a lecture and cannot attend, please contact the planetarium so we may make your seat available to another guest.

Please RSVP for each individual attendee.