Japanese American Experience

Keeping Kurrent

Joni Kimoto-Reeves, a survivor of the WWII Japanese Internment camps describes her families experience after being forcibly removed from Portland, Oregon to the Minidoka Japanese internment camp in a rural part of Idaho. She describes how her family managed to effectively deal with the harsh conditions of the camp and how they eventually were able to leave the camp and migrate east where work was available. Finally, she describes the long passage of time it took before her family could deal with the deep loss and rejection caused by the authorities and a public that had been encouraged to hate the Japanese because of the false claims against them.