Japanese incarceration camp survivors from Minidoka fight wind farm
If approved by the Bureau of Land Management, the Lava Ridge Wind Farm would put up 400 turbines on 118 square miles near Minidoka, where survivors say they are witnessing another attempt to bury the past. Minidoka is a camp in the vast Idaho desert where over 13,000 Japanese American men, women and children were incarcerated during World War II as security risks because of their ancestry.
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An honor guard from the American Legion Post #41 from Wendell, Idaho, prepares for a rifle salute as a large koinobori, or carp flag, flies in the wind during a closing ceremony for the Minidoka Pilgrimage at the Minidoka National Historic Site, on July 9 in Jerome, Idaho.
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An attendee attaches an "ema," a plaque used to write prayers or wishes in Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples, to a symbolic barbed wire display during a pilgrimage closing ceremony at Minidoka National Historic Site on July 9.
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Minidoka survivor and member of the pilgrimage planning committee Paul Tomita, right, gives a wreath of origami cranes to Hubert B. Two Leggins, an original member of the Whistling Water Clan from the Black Lodge District, following a blessing during a closing ceremony for the Minidoka Pilgrimage at the Minidoka National Historic Site on July 9.
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Minidoka survivor Jerry Arai bows his head in a prayer during a closing ceremony for the Minidoka Pilgrimage at the Minidoka National Historic Site on July 9.
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Kurt Ikeda, Director of Interpretation and Education at Minidoka National Historic Site, speaks in an original barracks returned to the site during a tour of the Minidoka National Historic Site on July 8 in Jerome, Idaho.
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M. Sally Nakai Kobayashi wipes her eyes during a flag ceremony with a 48-star World War II-era flag she and other survivors of incarceration signed outside the visitor center at the Minidoka National Historic Site on July 8 in Jerome, Idaho. Kobayashi, who was born at Minidoka and grew up in Chicago, now lives in Sapporo, Japan, where she gives presentations on Japanese American incarceration.
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Attendees clap during a closing dinner program at the Twin Falls County Fairgrounds on July 8 in Filer, Idaho.
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A member of the American Legion Post #41 honor guard carries an American flag towards the recreated honor roll near the entrance of the camp during a closing ceremony for the Minidoka Pilgrimage at the Minidoka National Historic Site. The honor roll is a 2011 replica of the original honor roll, built in 1943 by Minidoka incarcerees Kenjiro Nomura and Kamekichi Tokita to honor those from camp who served in the military.
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Jonnie Narita places a hand on the honor roll at the entrance of the Minidoka National Historic Site during a tour on July 8 in Jerome, Idaho.
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Richard Oba takes a bus to the Minidoka National Historic site with other Minidoka Pilgrimage attendees on July 8. Previous iterations of the Minidoka Pilgrimage had an option to bus from Seattle to Idaho, echoing the train ride many Japanese American took from the Puyallup Assembly Center to Minidoka.
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A reconstructed guard tower looms at the site's entrance as Kurt Ikeda, Director of Interpretation and Education at Minidoka National Historic Site, leads a tour for pilgrimage attendees on July 8 in Jerome, Idaho.
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A Minidoka Pilgrimage tour for elders with limited mobility passes by another tour walking the ground of the Minidoka National Historic Site.
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A historic mess hall, at left, and barracks, at right, sit at the Minidoka National Historic Site. During Minidoka's operation, each mess hall would serve one of more than 40 housing blocks comprising of a dozen barracks.
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Greg Kogita, center, prepares to receive a World War II-era flag signed by survivors of Minidoka and other camps during a flag ceremony for a group of Minidoka Pilgrimage attendees at Minidoka National Historic Site.
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The windows of an original barracks housing people incarcerated at the Minidoka camp reflect cows grazing in adjacent farmland that once held hundreds of similar barracks on the original site at the Minidoka National Historic Site. After World War II, the camp was disassembled, with the barracks being given to local farmers or demolished. The one barracks structure now returned to Minidoka has been modified over the years.
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A tractor travels down Hunt Road in front of a "Let's Stop Lava Ridge" sign near the Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho. If built to the original proposal, the Lava Ridge wind farm project by Magic Valley Energy, an affiliate of LS Power, would put up to 400 wind turbines in the view shed of the Minidoka National Historic Site.
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A reconstructed entry guard tower is silhouetted by the sunset at Minidoka National Historic Site. The original guard tower was one of eight such structures manned by United States military on the site surrounded by miles of barbed wire.
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Kurt Ikeda, Director of Interpretation and Education at Minidoka National Historic Site, brings his small Minidoka Pilgrimage tour, including Mabel Tomita, center, and volunteer Tessa Fujisaki, right, to an original barracks at the Minidoka National Historic Site.
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Paul Tomita poses for a portrait in a historic barracks at Minidoka National Historic Site. Tomita, who had asthma as an infant, says the constant desert dust that seeped even into the barracks repeatedly sent him to the camp hospital. "Dust on your face, dust in your ears, dust up your nose, dust in your mouth," he remembers.
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Tessa Fujisaki, 24, whose grandmother Rose Kokubu Fujisaki was incarcerated at Minidoka, poses in front of the reconstructed Honor Roll at Minidoka National Historic Site. Fujisaki felt like visiting the site was one of the "final pieces" of her journey to learn more about her grandmother's incarceration experience after reading through Rose's journals and talking with older relatives.
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