Kawashimo: Pieces of a Family Portrait (2022 Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship)
Poster Number
3C
Introduction/Abstract
The Summer 2022 Digital Humanities Fellowship is an interdisciplinary, technology-enhanced experience rooted in the collaborative ideals of Project Based Learning. Sponsored by the University Library, teams embark each summer on short, but intensive inquiries into complex, open-ended questions. This Summer 2022 fellowship centered on student-led investigations into the stories of immigrant families living in nearby Walnut Grove’s Japanese District, which served as a center for social and economic life for Japanese agricultural laborers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from the late 1800s until the incarceration of Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent to internment camps during World War II. Originally a Chinese immigrant community, Japanese laborers created their own nihonmachi (Japantown) in Walnut Grove after a fire in 1915 offered an opportunity for Japanese architects to design buildings in this district for the Japanese community. The development and removal of Walnut Grove’s Japanese and Japanese American populations is intricately tied to the histories of labor, ethnic tensions, and politics in the United States. Over five weeks, the summer fellows recreated this historic district using modeling programs and a game engine producing a story-driven interactive narrative that follows the lived experiences of Japanese immigrants who faced incarceration during WWII.
Location
Library and Learning Center, 3601 Pacific Ave., Stockton, CA 95211
Format
Poster Presentation
Kawashimo: Pieces of a Family Portrait (2022 Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship)
Library and Learning Center, 3601 Pacific Ave., Stockton, CA 95211
The Summer 2022 Digital Humanities Fellowship is an interdisciplinary, technology-enhanced experience rooted in the collaborative ideals of Project Based Learning. Sponsored by the University Library, teams embark each summer on short, but intensive inquiries into complex, open-ended questions. This Summer 2022 fellowship centered on student-led investigations into the stories of immigrant families living in nearby Walnut Grove’s Japanese District, which served as a center for social and economic life for Japanese agricultural laborers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from the late 1800s until the incarceration of Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent to internment camps during World War II. Originally a Chinese immigrant community, Japanese laborers created their own nihonmachi (Japantown) in Walnut Grove after a fire in 1915 offered an opportunity for Japanese architects to design buildings in this district for the Japanese community. The development and removal of Walnut Grove’s Japanese and Japanese American populations is intricately tied to the histories of labor, ethnic tensions, and politics in the United States. Over five weeks, the summer fellows recreated this historic district using modeling programs and a game engine producing a story-driven interactive narrative that follows the lived experiences of Japanese immigrants who faced incarceration during WWII.
