Uprooted: Images of Japanese labor camps in the U.S.

An exhibit examining farm labor camps during World War II, and the use of Japanese Americans as a labor source will open Monday in Coeur d'Alene.

"Uprooted," a traveling exhibit produced by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission will be on display at the Human Rights Education Institute, 414 Mullan Road until Sept. 12.

An opening reception will be held Monday at 4 p.m., and a presentation about the exhibit will be offered at 6 p.m. These events are free and open to the public.

"Uprooted" features 45 images, taken by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee near the communities of Nyssa, Ore., and Rupert, Shelley and Twin Falls in the summer of 1942, three text panels, and a short video featuring excerpts from oral history interviews with people who lived in the camps.

Between 1942 and 1944, some 33,000 individual contracts were issued to those Japanese Americans who left concentration camps to work in seasonal farm labor. The Nyssa camp, the first organized for Japanese American laborers during the war, opened on May 20, 1942. It held 350 individuals at its peak, many of whom lived and worked in eastern Oregon till the war's end, rather than being incarcerated at Minidoka near Twin Falls or other concentration camps. The overall Japanese American farm labor camp experience during the war has been little documented.

Photographer Russell Lee (1903-1986) is best recognized for his work with the Farm Security Administration. During his tenure with the federal agency, Lee became the most prolific FSA photographer, producing nearly 5,000 images, including several hundred images of the Japanese American wartime experience. Between April and August 1942, he documented the "evacuation" of individuals and families in California as well as four farm labor camps in Oregon and Idaho. His latter work is featured in the "Uprooted" exhibit. According to Lee's biographer, F. Jack Hurley, he abhorred the government's treatment of Japanese Americans during the war and wanted to document what he described as a very dark period in American history.

"Uprooted" is funded, in part, by grants from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program; the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Fred W. Fields Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation; the Malheur County Cultural Trust; and the Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust.