Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain
Networks, Power, and Everyday Life
by Saara Kekki
Published by: University of Oklahoma Press
Imprint: University of Oklahoma Press
Interconnections between people are the foundation of human societies. Exploring the creation of networks at Heart Mountain, as well as movement to and from the camp between 1942 and 1945, this book offers an unusually detailed look at the formation of a society within the incarcerated community, specifically the manifestation of power, agency, and resistance. Kekki constructs a dynamic network model of all of Heart Mountain’s residents and their interconnections—family, political, employment, social, and geospatial networks—using historical “big data” drawn from the War Relocation Authority and narrative sources, including the camp newspaper Heart Mountain Sentinel. For all the inmates, life inevitably went on: people married, had children, worked, and engaged in politics. Because of the duration of the incarceration, many became institutionalized and unwilling to leave the camps when the time came. Yet most individuals, Kekki finds, took charge of their own destinies despite the injustice and looked forward to the day when Heart Mountain was behind them.
Especially timely in its implications for debates over immigration and assimilation, Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain presents a remarkable opportunity to reconstruct a community created under duress within the larger American society, and to gain new insight into an American experience largely lost to official history.
“A heuristic model for historians to emulate with other camps.”— Nichi Bei News
Supplemental Images
Supplemental images are provided as pdf downloads at the links below
Figure 2 (Chapter 3)
Connections between various institutions at Heart Mountain. A connection appears when two institutions share a member. (Included in the figure are organizations with more than one shared member.) The thicker the edge, the larger the number of shared members. The medium-dark nodes at the bottom of the figure represent the political network, the darkest are the social organizations, and the lightest color are the workplaces. The node size reflects the betweenness centrality of the organization. For example, the USO appears often on the path from one organization to another. Created by author.
Figure 3 (Chapter 4)
Heart Mountain political network. Political organizations are numbered. Darker nodes represent men and lighter nodes represent women. Nodes are sized based on outdegree, the number of memberships an individual has. Some of the significant individuals are labeled. Created by author.
Figure 4 (Chapter 5)
The division of the camp population by citizenship was evident in all of the formal networks. In general, the Issei dominated the political network but had only scattered presence in other networks. Meanwhile, the Nisei had power in the employment and social networks. Created by author.
Figure 5 , Figure 5b (Chapter 5)
Education level of inmates in the formal networks. Nodes are sized by their outdegree (number of memberships). Some of the most connected individuals are labeled, as are some of the big or otherwise important organizations. Created by author.
Figure 6a (Chapter 6)
Interpersonal connections at the peak of the network in the winter of 1944. Nodes are sized based on their betweenness centrality and colored by modularity community (nodes that have a lot of links between each other but fewer to other parts of the network are grouped together). The most significant bridges and largest communities are named. Created by author.
Figure 6b (Chapter 6)
Reach of the Sakauye family. Green nodes are individuals and organizations reached by members of the family directly or through one intermediary. The family’s reach is quite sparse and scattered (compared to e.g. the Fujioka family).
Figure 7 (Chapter 6)
Reach of the Fujioka family. Individuals and organizations reached by family members directly or through one intermediary are colored blue.
Figure 8 (Chapter 7)
Gender at Heart Mountain formal networks. Female nodes are larger in size.
Figure 9 (Chapter 8)
Fair Play Committee network
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