Alien Enemies or American Citizens? Belonging, Wartime Exclusion, and Resistance in Rural Washington and Central Washington College
Wyatt Pisz, Scott Peters, Charlie Burton Project Mentor(s): Josue Q. Estrada, PhD
This paper examines the lives of persons of Japanese descent, and Japanese Americans in Kittitas County, Washington, before and after WW2, with a focus on Ellensburg and Central Washington College (Now Central Washington University). While scholarship has emphasized urban experiences, this study highlights how wartime incarceration reshaped life in a rural community with fewer members, resources, and allies. Following executive order 9066, Japanese people in Kittitas County were forcibly removed, leaving behind their homes, farms, and businesses. In this rural area, displacement was especially destabilizing, since a small network existed to lessen the emotional, social and economic burdens. It also examines the experience of Japanese American students at Central, who were forced to leave campus, with some incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Drawing on government records, local newspapers, university archives, and oral histories, the paper analyzes how Central Washington College and the Ellensburg community responded to the removal of person of Japanese Descent. Finally, it highlights moments of resistance and negotiation, showing that the community challenged their removal. This study is significant in that it focuses on the removal of persons of Japanese ancestry within a rural context, broadening the history of wartime incarceration and its legacy in Kittitas County and Central. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation (May 20, 9:30am–5:00pm) Keywords: History, Pacific Northwest, Japanese Internment, Wartime Incarceration, Kittitas County SOURCE Form ID: 110 US and British Relations during the Military Intervention during the Russian Civil War 1918–1919: A Mixed Message Zach Rubino* Project Mentor(s): Melissa Jordine, PhD The Great War, later known as World War I, represented a major turning point in European history. The war had a significant impact on the politics, economy and culture of all the nations fighting in the war. Nowhere was this more evident than in Russia, where two revolutions in 1917 brought to power first the Provisional Government and then the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Il’ich Lenin. His decision to end Russia’s participation in World War I was opposed by the Allies. The British, French, and U.S. objected to Lenin’s decision to end Russia’s participation in World War I, concerned both by the transfer of German troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in 1917 and by the Bolshevik revolution itself, which soon turned into a civil war. Great Britain, France, the United States, and various other Allied nations decided to militarily intervene. The Allies collectively agreed that the most effective way to establish order in Russia was to support a nucleus of anti-Bolshevik Russian forces capable of destroying the Bolsheviks. My research details the agreed parameters between the United States and Great Britain regarding the nature of the deployment of U.S. troops to Russia and how the different motives during the military intervention to Russia created a discord between the U.S. troops under British leadership. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation (May 20, 9:30am–5:00pm) Keywords: U.S. and Russia, Military Intervention, Civil War, Bolshevism, 1918-1919 SOURCE Form ID: 93
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