It's been nearly two weeks since I arrived home from my visit to the New Denver Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre. I have tried many times to write down my thoughts about that visit and just can't seem to find the words. Perhaps there are none.
Instead, a few pictures from my visit and one memory:
I'm standing in a shack of less than 400 square feet that would have been home to two families. A wood bed frame with a thin mattress takes up most of the "room" in which I stand - there is no door. This is the sleeping space for one entire family and covers a full third of the total floor space of the shack. There is a thin grey blanket folded at the end of the bed. Light creeps through the cracks in the tar-paper walls. I shudder - in June - and wonder how bitterly cold this shack would have been in the dead of winter. I'm trying to imagine how it would feel to discover this was my new home. But there is no way for me to ever imagine the feelings of overwhelming loss, fear of the unknown, separation from family and friends, and utter betrayal by my country.
Instead, a few pictures from my visit and one memory:
I'm standing in a shack of less than 400 square feet that would have been home to two families. A wood bed frame with a thin mattress takes up most of the "room" in which I stand - there is no door. This is the sleeping space for one entire family and covers a full third of the total floor space of the shack. There is a thin grey blanket folded at the end of the bed. Light creeps through the cracks in the tar-paper walls. I shudder - in June - and wonder how bitterly cold this shack would have been in the dead of winter. I'm trying to imagine how it would feel to discover this was my new home. But there is no way for me to ever imagine the feelings of overwhelming loss, fear of the unknown, separation from family and friends, and utter betrayal by my country.
