The University Libraries at the University of Colorado at Boulder is presenting an exhibition titled "The Enemy Alien Files: Hidden Stories of World War II" now on display in the third floor northwest gallery of Norlin Library through April 6.
The exhibit will be marked with a reception and program on Friday, April 5, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.Ìý
After the United States entered the war in 1941, some 31,000 Japanese, German and Italian enemy aliens living in the United States and Latin America were arrested and interned for reasons of national security. Some were deported in prisoner exchanges with war-torn countries they had never been to or had left years before.Ìý
The incarceration of Japanese-American citizens has been well documented, but the experiences of non-citizen immigrants classified as enemy aliens are virtually unknown to the public. The CU-Boulder exhibit offers some of their stories to the public for the first time.
The World War II internment and deportation of enemy aliens provides insights about the making of effective security policy and the fate of civil liberties and human rights in wartime.
The exhibit is a collaborative presentation by the National Japanese American Historical Society in San Francisco, the Japanese Peruvian Oral History Project, the Western Regional Chapter of the American Italian Historical Association and the German American Education Fund.
The April 5 event will be held on the fifth floor of Norlin Library at the Center for British Studies. It will include brief presentations by two of the scholars and advisers to the exhibit.Ìý
The presenters will be Grace Shimizu, director of the Peruvian Oral History Project and founding member of the Campaign for Justice: Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans. The other presenter is Max Friedman, Woodrow Wilson Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the Center for Humanities and the Arts.
Friedman also is the organizer of "'Alien Enemies' in Wartime: Race, Ethnicity and Civil Liberties," a symposium scheduled on the Boulder campus and at the Colorado Chautauqua Association April 4 through April 6.Ìý
The exhibit will close at 5 p.m. on April 6. The Norlin Library Gallery is open Mondays through Thursdays from 8 a.m. until midnight, on Fridays from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Sundays from noon to midnight.Ìý
The building will be closed at 5 p.m. March 27 to March 30. For more information contact Deborah Fink at (303) 492-8302 or deborah.fink@colorado.edu, or Max Friedman at (303) 735-0823 or max.friedman@colorado.edu.Ìý