Nidoto Nai Yoni

In Regards to my last post,

It was just this last summer. My dad and me were able to share one of those few big father-son trips. He was taking me along on a business trip to Jackson Hole. On the fly we decided on a little side journey to the Minidoka National Historic Site or the former Minidoka War Relocation Center as it had been known as. It was one of ten relocation centers built for the 110,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII. I had visited the Heart Mountain Relocation Center probably ten years earlier, too young to appreciate the gravity of the site where my grandpa and his family once resided. Minidoka was right in my home state. Of course the War Relocation Authority, or WRA, thought it proper to place the interment camp in one the most inhospitable and lackluster places in the state of Idaho, the Magic Valley.

I made the drive to Jerome, we tried to map out our destination on my dad’s Blackberry. It was a confusing jumble of directions. My family had tried to make it to Minidoka a few years back but got lost trying to find it. The tar-paper metropolis has since vanished into the pages of history, known only by a few locals. This time my dad and me stopped at the virtual ghost town of Eden, Idaho. A ironic name for it’s desolate sagebrush infested location. This was our junction to history.

After about an hour of driving back and forth on rural Idaho’s confusing roads we were about to call it quits. I suggested we drive a little further, the last hurrah before giving up again on our quest to find Minidoka. Before we knew it we were hugging the Snake River. On our right I saw a few shady looking buildings, a dirt parking lot, and a dirt-covered plaque. We finally made it.

The buildings lacked personality and charm. They were ghostly skeletons of buildings that had been painted over for use as modern housing. Their looks suggested they had been emptied once again, their last scrap of respect by the locals and government. We were the only ones there, easy to imagine considering how hard it was to find. Truly in the middle of nowhere, just how the WRA wanted it for the Japanese-American Issei and Nisei. Some hasty excavations had been done at the site. A little desert garden and path built by the former inhabitants had been re-excavated. Most of the site was barren. At its height there were hundreds of buildings that include barracks, schools, a hospital, cafeteria, community center and handfuls of other buildings. Now there was only a stray building or two, the brick remains of the guard station, waiting room and the little rock garden. My father and me took on the role of explorer. It was as if we came across some ancient site unseen by humanity for years. We could see the concrete foundations of former buildings, nails and bricks strewn about. No sign that almost ten thousand once lived in this barren land overrun by grass and brush. The only company was the haunting silence and rush of the river. That same summer heat was pouring over us like it did to its inhabitants almost seventy years ago. I looked around with a heavy heart. The amount of neglect was apparent.

President Bush allotted 38 million dollars for restoring Minidoka and ten other relocation sites in 2006. There are scarce signs that it has reached little Minidoka yet. I can only hope that those last few buildings wont disappear into the wilderness forever; But that it will emerge once again as a reminder of the past and a hope for the future.

Nidoto Nai Yoni – “Let in not happen again”