The mass incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II is a powerful but often occluded illustration of the fragility of US citizenship and civil liberties. As such, this event demands frequent reexamination in relation to ongoing conversations regarding post-9/11 special registration, detention, and deportation, as well as long-standing formal and informal practices of profiling and surveillance of communities of color. This daylong conference presents a three-part program examining: 1) the history of the Japanese American incarceration and how it is made meaningful to multiple publics in different locations – higher education, museums, and our national landmarks; 2) artists who deploy this history as relevant to their artistic and political practices in the present; 3) the legal significance of the incarceration to contemporary local and national state policies directed against communities of color.

This conference is sponsored by Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College, and Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University.

Conference Program

1. 9:00AM – 10:00AM: Registration & Coffee/Tea

2. 10:00AM - 10:15AM: Introductions

Jennifer Hayashida, Director of the Asian American Studies Program, Hunter College

3. 10:15AM – 11:00AM: Keynote Address  

Norman Mineta, 14th United States Secretary of Transportation

4. 11:00AM – 12:30PM: Panel I: Teaching the Limits of Citizenship to Multiple Post-9/11 Publics

Heidi Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor, English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Greg Kimura, PhD, President/CEO, The Japanese American National Museum

Franklin Odo, PhD, Founding Director - Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center

5. 12:30PM – 1:45PM: Lunch

6. 1:45PM – 3:15PM: Panel II: Dislocated Memories: Incarceration, Communities of Color & the Arts

Tomie Arai, Public Artist & Printmaker

Roger Shimomura, Artist & Distinguished Professor of Art Emeritus, The University of Kansas

Katie Yamasaki, Muralist & Children’s Book Author/Illustrator

7. 3:30PM – 5:00PM: Panel III: Legacies of the Incarceration in Surveillance & Policing of U.S. Communities of Color

Baher Azmy, Legal Director, The Center for Constitutional Rights

Kathryn Bannai, first lead attorney in Hirabayashi vs. US in 1982-1985

Amardeep Singh, Co-Founder & National Director of Programs, The Sikh Coalition

8. 5:00PM – 6:00PM: Reception

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