The Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts and the Hot Springs Sister City Program will host a special lecture titled “The American Dream Deferred: Japanese American Incarceration in World War II Arkansas.”
Kim Sanders of the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies will present the lecture at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 10, in the Rainey Room of the Creativity and Innovation Complex on ASMSA’s campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Sanders is a confinement site exhibit interpreter for the historical center. She will use photographs, artwork and documents created during the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans in Arkansas during World War II to address themes of identity, community, civil rights and justice that continue to be relevant today.
After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and the United State’s entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority, which selected 10 sites to incarcerate more than 110,000 Japanese Americans, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.
Arkansas had two Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II. The Rohwer Relocation Center operated from Sept. 18, 1942, to Nov. 30, 1945, reaching a population of 8,475 at its peak, according to the history website. A total of 2,447 school-age children were incarcerated in the camp.
The Jerome Relocation Center operated from Oct. 6, 1942, to June 30, 1944, reaching a population of 7,932 at its peak in January 1943. The camp’s 2,447 school-age children made up 31 percent of its total population, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas’ entry.
The Creativity and Innovation Complex is located at 200 Whittington Ave.