National History Day Competition - Allison Chen, Idaho Finalist

Visiting the Special Archives at Boise State University’s Albertsons Library.

Allison Chen, a student at One Stone School in Boise, Idaho, created a short film about Henry Miyatake, a student at the Minidoka concentration camp during WWII. She travelled to Washington, D.C. as a finalist for the National History Day Competition.

Watch her video: Henry Miyatake: Breaking the Barbed Wire Behind the Silence of Japanese American Concentration Camps

Read her reflection:

“The spirit of all who were imprisoned in Minidoka can be felt and heard in the swirling sand.” -Mary (Tanaka) Abo

Through studying the past, I learned that promoting and educating younger generations, such as myself, can bring together a divided community through embracing our differences. When I was young, I constantly felt as if my opinions were insignificant in a world of complex and multifaceted topics, including advocacy. Henry Miyatake’s story gave me the push I needed to understand that my voice carried value; that a young girl like myself could speak up. He gave me inspiration and helped me to realize my agency. When I embarked on my research on Japanese American incarceration camps, I witnessed the importance of the past; its place in not only affecting current generations, but shaping the future. This grave injustice that occurred in America’s past, not only built onto our nation’s identity, but also catalyzed generations of minorities to shine a light on the importance of advocacy and minority rights. It showed how a nation can learn to accept and take effort towards a greater future from events like the Japanese American incarceration camps. Through discovering Henry Miyatake’s story, one of a Japanese American incarceration resister, advocate, and engineer, I began to realize how an individual’s legacy from history affects the world we live in today. The way Henry Miyatake’s essay: What Democracy Means to Me, a statement of his perspective of the incarceration camps as a teenager, created what was like an unfolding series of dominos, fragile, and yet showcasing a beautifully interlinked community. 

Following the end of the war, younger Japanese American generations began to realize the importance of a movement. These actions led to the Japanese American incarceration redress movement, which allowed past generations to confront their pain and heal, as well as spark future generations to advocate for one another. Understanding and exploring these accounts brought me closer to my identity, and aided me into growing to who I am today. As a young double minority, a female Asian American, I saw and faced racial discrimination and prejudices. These molding experiences shone a light on how far minority rights have progressed, in particular for Asian Americans. This made me take a step back, and see what it truly means to be an Asian American, and how the hardships that my heritage had endured, allowed for the wealth of opportunities for me now: America, the land of the free. Prior events can bring awareness to past injustices, and light a path for a diverse group of aspiring individuals, including myself. I  learned of past generational sacrifices that built our own unique culture and traditions. This nation, our community, is built not only on the promise of a greater future, but weaved intricately from  the past. The Japanese American incarceration camps were a crucial event that shaped America’s present, through the suffering of generations building endurance, learning from the past to gain historical context, and understanding how to create the future of our nation.