Japanese Diaspora in a WWII Incarceration Camp: Archaeology of Gila River

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Tuesday August 23

6:00 PM  –  7:00 PM

Guest Lecture – Japanese Diaspora in a WWII Incarceration Camp: Archaeology of Gila River

Tuesday, August 23, 2022
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission; Advance Registration Required

Join us for a special guest lecture on current archaeological work at Gila River WWII Incarceration Camp Site with Stanford University Archaeology PhD Candidate Koji Lau-Ozawa

 

The Gila River Incarceration Camp, located on the land of the Gila River Indian Community, ultimately held over 16,000 Japanese Americans in the Southern Arizona desert. Despite forced removal and confinement, Japanese American incarcerees maintained spaces and networks of community inside and outside of the borders of the camp. In this talk, Koji Lau-Ozawa, a PhD candidate at Stanford University, discusses the results of a multi-year archaeological project at Gila River in collaboration with the Gila River Indian Community, focusing on the ways people in camp made new lives in the context of incarceration. The research has been especially personal to Lau-Ozawa as Gila River was the site of his grandparents’ incarceration.

About Koji Lau-Ozawa

Koji Lau-Ozawa is a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University’s Department of Archaeology. He received his M.A. with Honors in Archaeology and Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, where he wrote his thesis on “The Use of Archaeology in the Formation of Ethnic Identity for the Ainu” (indigenous people of Japan), and an M.A. from San Francisco State University Department of Anthropology with thesis work on “The Archaeology of Gardens in Japanese American Incarceration Camps. He regularly comes to the Center as a member of the San Francisco Kendo Dojo.

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