Meet Emma Rosales!

This year I am incredibly fortunate to be working with the Friends of Minidoka organization as their Events & Communication intern. As a junior at Northern Arizona University pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, I will help create content for Friends of Minidoka’s social media and blog posts as well as assisting with events and visitor engagement activities at the site this summer.

One of the very first assignments I was tasked with was to help with the Volunteer Day clean up to prepare the site for its summer season grand opening. Despite the relentless rain, we packed into the site with staff members, NPS rangers, and a strong volunteer turnout. We came together to ensure that the visitor center was polished and ready for guests. As I spent time washing windows and dusting the displays, I was able to take a look around the exhibit and read a little about the camp itself, and the Friends of Minidoka mission. I remember being a junior in high school in Boise when my English teacher first mentioned the unjustifiable incarceration of Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants in the Pacific West. I could not believe in all my years at school that this was the very first time someone had acknowledged this part of our nation's history. Walking through the center, I listened and read through some of these prisoners' stories, their lifestyle while in the camp, and the challenges of transitioning back into society after finally being released. As we live in a world where we have the resources and tools to educate ourselves at our fingertips, there should be no excuse for idleness and ignorance. Silence is the biggest threat to progress. When stories go untold, there is a risk of revisiting past faults.