Mira Shimabukuro speaks on the Mother’s Society of Minidoka

In early July, IAS faculty member Mira Shimabukuro spoke about her research at the annual Minidoka Pilgrimage in Twin Falls, Idaho to a group of survivors and descendants of survivors who gather each year to deepen their awareness about the history and legacy of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II. Shimabukuro told the little-known story of the Mother’s Society of Minidoka, a group of Japanese Issei (immigrant) women who wrote to respond to the US government’s 1944 announcement of the drafting of their already-imprisoned sons. Sharing the letter they wrote, and the story behind it, the audience joined Shimabukuro in reading out loud the names of 100+ women who signed the letter, in order to honor their legacy in the location of their former imprisonment.