Monthly Book Highlight: Nature Behind Barbed Wire
Monthly Book Highlight: Nature Behind Barbed Wire
By Camille Daw, Fellow, Friends of Minidoka
Connie Y. Chiang, Nature Behind Barbed Wire: An Environmental History of the Japanese American Incarceration, Oxford University Press: 2018. 312
Keeping with the agricultural theme of this Irrigator newsletter, we are highlighting Connie Y. Chiang’s book about the environmental history of America’s concentration camps. Environmental history looks at the ways in which nature, landscapes, and environment shaped the past, viewing the environment as an active participant in making history. Environmental history frequently revolves around human interactions and relationships with the land over time. In this case, Chiang investigates the relationship between the landscapes and those confined behind barbed wire.
The dust and remoteness of the landscape are common themes among survivors of America’s concentration camps. Many former incarcerees frequently explained how they felt as if they were transported into an entirely different world upon arriving at Minidoka. In one oral history interview conducted by Densho, Shigeko Sese Uno explains, “...all this dust would come through, through the window frames, because they wasn't insulated. They would come in through everything, and lay itself on the, all over the floor, the tables, the beds, and the dining room, where the plates were. They would just be covered with dust… And then in the winter when rains came, the same dust would turn into mud…And then she…my daughter…went into the mud….So we had to go get the boots and all. It was that muddy and sticky.”
Chiang illustrated the battle between humans and mother nature in her book Nature Behind Barbed Wire. In this academic publication, she examines the purposeful intentions of the War Relocation Authority’s use of the natural environment to incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II. The WRA purposely chose isolated landscapes, close to water sources that could be used for irrigation and agriculture. Minidoka contained both, though when prisoners first arrived, many were shocked by the dust. Soon after their arrival, however, incarcerated men, women, and children set to work on the thousands of acres set aside for agriculture. The WRA’s goals for the land was to establish irrigation and agricultural projects using the underpaid labor of their prisoners.
Chiang also examines “Environmental Patriotism” through the lens of victory gardens and sugar beet laborers. Victory gardens in the concentration camps were essentially a small drop in a big pond in comparison to the agriculture produced in much larger and comprehensive quantities. Yet, incarcerees still sowed gardens outside of their barracks to plant seeds they purchased from Sears & Roebuck catalogs, and tended to their small gardens to demonstrate their patriotism and similarity to Americans who were not incarcerated. She also looks at employees of sugar beet operations and factories as doing their civic duties because sugar beets were a valuable commodity during the war, and had it not been for the efforts of Japanese Americans, tons of beets would have gone to waste due to the lack of labor.
Though Chiang’s book is comprehensive and lengthy, her language remains accessible for a variety of readers. Similarly, she includes plenty of images to illustrate her points. As Minidoka incarcerees essentially transformed both the landscape of their confinement site, and the Magic Valley region through their labor, investigating their relationship with the landscape remains important to the history of the incarceration.