'Uprooted'

COEUR d'ALENE - A new exhibit at the Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene teaches what it meant to live in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.

One of those learning this history is Keiji Shimizu. Shimizu, of Spokane, was born in 1944, in a Japanese labor camp.

"This is a part of my life I have never really been exposed to," Shimizu said as he looked over the images on display.

Shimizu's parents, like many others who lived in the many camps throughout the Northwest, chose to not relive their experiences in the camps with their children or others. Before Shimuzu's birth, his family was taken at gunpoint from their home in Wenatchee, Wash., to the Heart Land Camp in Wyoming.

David McCaw, an HREI board member, said he is glad Shimizu was able to learn more about the experience he and his parents had when he was a very young child.

"It's hard to know who your target audience is with an exhibit like this," McCaw said. "I did wonder if people who experienced the camps would be interested in this exhibit."

David Milholland, the president of the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, helped make the exhibit a reality.

"This was the experience for one-quarter of the Japanese population in America during that time," Milholland said. "It's a part of history that needs to be looked at."

Shimizu said he was outraged that this could happen to any race of people.

"All races need to know that this stuff happens," he said.

McCaw said it is not about blame at this point or investigating human rights violations.

"It's about having a greater sense of what occurred back then," he said.

The exhibit will be on display at HREI at 414 Mullan Ave. until Sept. 12. For more information visit the exhibit online at www.uprootedexhibit.com.