12th Annual Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium a Success

Friends of Minidoka joined the National Park Service, the Boise State University School of Public Service, and ACLU Idaho in hosting the 12th annual Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium on Wednesday, October 25th, Boise State University.

Over 100 guests joined us for a keynote lecture on Minidoka by Tom Ikeda of Densho, and a screening of Hidden Histories, followed by an expert panel of speakers on the Japanese American incarceration. Hidden Histories is a touring program of five short narrative films about Japanese American incarceration during WWII. Panelists included Paul Y. Watanabe, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston; Tom Ikeda, Executive Director of Densho; Jason Matsumoto, Hidden Histories producer; and Mikka Macdonald, researcher of the Japanese-Peruvian prisoner exchange.

The Minidoka Civil Liberties Symposium examines historic and contemporary civil liberties issues as related to the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, which impacted nearly 15,000 men, women, and children confined at the Minidoka incarceration site in Jerome County, Idaho. This year’s symposium was part of Boise State University Human Rights Week, and was co-sponsored by the Marylin Shuler Human Rights Initiative and the Frank Church Institute.