BONNIE J.  CLARK

UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

Co-sponsored with Asian American Studies

During World War II, Americans of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes and placed into confinement camps throughout the western US. This presentation overviews the methods and results of six seasons of landscape archaeology at one of those sites—Amache—located in southeastern Colorado.  The site contains an incredibly well-preserved record of how the people incarcerated there transformed a hostile landscape through strategy and skill.  By integrating a program of historical research, community engagement, and intensive garden archaeology, the University of Denver Amache project is expanding the view of what incarceree gardens are, how they were created, and their import, both to those who made them and us today.