Date of Award

1-1-2015

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Anthropology

First Advisor

Bonnie Clark, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Donald G. Sullivan

Third Advisor

Dean Saitta

Keywords

Amache, Internment, Japanese American, Practical politics, Practice, Saké

Abstract

After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast of the United States were forcibly removed from their home communities. These people were designated as "evacuees" by the U.S. Government and were incarcerated within a network of federal government facilities the largest of which were internment centers operated by the War Relocation Authority that held mostly U.S. citizens. The Granada Relocation Center (Amache) was the smallest of these internment centers. The presence of saké at Amache indicates that Japanese Americans continued important practices of daily life despite restrictions under confinement. This thesis investigates the practices of saké production and consumption at Amache and examines the importance of these practices in Japanese American daily life. In order to understand these practices, this research draws on multiple lines of evidence. This includes investigations of an assemblage of the material culture associated with saké, research into the history and methods of production and consumption, collection of oral histories, review of archival data, and the application of practice theory. These data provide insight into practices that are not well understood by researchers of Japanese American internment due to their illicit nature. This research endeavors to characterize how saké was produced and used at Amache and provides a way to understand how cultural practices maintain aspects of everyday life in ways that may have little to do with intentional resistance.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Christian Driver

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

212 p.

Discipline

Archaeology, Asian History, Asian Studies

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