Written by Vienne Aberle, Communications & Advancement Assistant for the Idaho Chapter
Background
In August of 1942, the Minidoka War Relocation Center was authorized in Jerome County, Idaho, and operated as an incarceration camp for Japanese Americans until its closure in 1945. At its peak population, Minidoka held approximately 9,397 Japanese Americans from across the Pacific Northwest, and over 14,000 over the course of the camp’s operation. Over two-thirds of relocated individuals were American citizens, yet very few people outside of the Japanese American community spoke against the relocation. The act of relocation and imprisonment is best described by the Friends of Minidoka, a nonprofit organization created to preserve the site, who say in one article that “the system of checks and balances that is supposed to protect the rights and freedoms of American citizens was trampled upon in what legal scholars have described as one of the worst violations of constitutional rights in American history.”
Though the Japanese Americans were ‘free’ once released from the camp, they had little to return to or build upon. Forced to sell their land, businesses, and belongings for mere pennies before being imprisoned, and given nothing but a one way ticket and $25 dollars upon release, Japanese Americans lost everything to these camps – both their possessions and their dignity. Yet, despite the war’s end and surfacing proof that there was no evidence that the Japanese Americans had been a threat to national security, they still faced discrimination, predjudice, and violence due to the isolating stigma and government’s prior fearmongering. “Japanese Americans carried psychological burdens and an undeserved stigma from the unjust imprisonment long after the war’s end,” one scholar wrote in an article about the community’s collective trauma caused by the experience.
Minidoka has been honored as a national historic site and serves as a place for education, remembrance, and healing. It stands as a pillar of history and a reminder that this kind of atrocity cannot happen again. The site holds a deep significance to the survivors of the camp and the generations that came after, acting as a sacred site for immersive reflection on their experiences and those of others. Sometimes referred to as ‘the silent parent’ phenomenon, many incarcerated Japanese Americans refused to speak of their experiences with their children, as the shame and memories were too much. Minidoka creates a space for opening that dialogue, as well as allowing younger generations to finally begin to understand the experiences of their relatives.
The Lava Ridge Wind Project Proposal
Now, Minidoka’s site faces an uncertain future. LS Power, a private equity company from New York, has proposed a massive wind project that encroaches on the historical footprint of Minidoka and disrupts 114 degrees of the site’s viewshed. The project is one of the largest proposed, with 400 wind turbines standing at nearly 740 feet tall – the tallest ever built. The majority of the turbines would be visible (and audible) from the Minidoka site, and the closest one would be within 2 miles from the visitor center.
According to Friends of Minidoka, the project would have a number of significant effects, such as: impairing Minidoka's fundamental resources and values; dishonoring those who were wrongfully incarcerated; losing their ability to help the public understand that the current hate and violence directed at the AAPI community are not new; and impacting the sacred nature of the pilgrimages taken by survivors and their descendants to heal the deep emotional trauma dating back to the 1940s.
Now, Friends of Minidoka is asking their supports for comment submissions to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to ask them to pause the environmental impact statement process currently underway, so that they can thoughtfully update their resource management plan. This plan has not been updated in decades, but dictates the process for managing land usage and for vetting proposals (among other things). If the BLM refuses to pause the current process, then the Friends of Minidoka ask that they consider including additional alternatives in their environmental impact statement, as well as creating some sort of administrative protection for the land that isn’t permitted for the use of the wind project.
Finding the Path to an Inclusive Clean Energy Future
As an organization working to protect the environment and promote clean energy, while also having a strong commitment to racial and social justice, equity and inclusion in the work we do, the Lava Ridge Wind Farm Project highlights the complexity of the issues we face in a movement that is most often led by white voices. The Sierra Club has made huge strides in restructuring equity and justice into the framework of its campaigns, leadership, and overall organizational structure, and the Idaho Chapter is committed to the same. The work we do for the environment is inextricably linked with racial justice and with the nation’s history and upholding of white supremacist structures. In order to combat this, we ask ourselves: how do we – those who promote clean energy and support racial justice – find ways to support the extensive scope of justice, allyship, and equity that exists today?
It’s a complex question that has no straightforward answer. To begin creating even the semblance of one, we need to recognize our own complicity and engagement with white supremacy, and address both the organization’s and individual’s place in the environmental movement. And, perhaps most importantly, we must listen to and raise up the voices of marginalized communities, BIPOC leaders and organizations, and learn from them. This concept is not new to us; for a small example, we are committed to consistently amplifying indigenous organization’s and tribe’s work and input in our salmon recovery work. But, in the case of Minidoka, the direct collision of two core values – clean energy and equity – forces us to address our place more critically than before.
On Thursday, July 21st, the Idaho Sierra Club held a public webinar featuring Robyn Achilles, Executive Director of Friends of Minidoka, to learn more about the problem the Wind Farm Project poses to the historical site, followed by a space for questions, discussion, and reflection. In that space and in this one, we remind ourselves and our supporters of the Idaho Chapter’s vision for equity, inclusion and justice. Read the full statement here, and allow me to pull the last line from it: “We aim to be an organization that is a force for fundamental progressive change.” I find that it brings me to contemplate this: how can we live up to this commitment, to being a force of progressive change, without recognizing that clean energy is not inherently equitable, and that the only way to create a movement for clean energy for all means that renewable energy sources cannot repeat the pattern of the fossil fuel industry that puts undue burden onto BIPOC communities?
The trends of placing dirty energy plants and industrial sites of major pollution in communities of color are some of the biggest systemic racial issues plaguing the energy industry and environmental justice movement today. These actions directly cater to the privileged white population who are historically against industrial development in their communities; they want energy, but only if they don’t have to see it or deal with its impacts.
So, in the case of Minidoka, the wealthy corporate elite from New York, untouched by the atrocities and trauma of unjust incarceration, see little issue in the placement of the wind farm. For Japanese Americans, who are still facing the long term effects of unjust incarceration and now also confront the latest wave of AAPI hate spurred by the pandemic, this is an unacceptable erasure of history; yet, to companies like LS Power, it’s just another Tuesday’s money grab. Just as Japanese Americans were deliberately targeted for discrimination during WWII while their German and Italian American counterparts were not, the Japanese American community is being scapegoated again, faced with two losing options: defy the wind farm and face hatred for seeming to not care about the environment, or support it and lose a piece of history and communal healing at the sacred site. We can examine it with this comparison: we don’t see wind farms proposed on the grounds of Jamestown or Roanoke, Gettysburg or the Mall of America – it likely doesn’t cross anyone’s mind to claim these major historic sites and landmarks of predominantly white history for development of a massive wind farm. When these contradictions pile up, the muddier the water around this project gets.
There is also an additional issue to grapple with in this situation – where the power is going and who it actually benefits. According to LS Power’s previous proposal for a major transmission line, they intend on sending the power generated by these wind turbines out of Idaho, and down through Nevada to Southern California. Not only does this mean that the power isn’t serving Idahoans at all, but it also means that the project won’t benefit the local community in the way that clean energy initiatives generally do, in regard to the impacts on the local economy via infrastructure and job creation.
Still, we also must weigh the fact that the climate crisis is real and it is happening all around us. With summer temperatures on the rise, droughts causing water shortages across the country, wildfires burning faster and more frequently, and various species of animals and plants suffering, the list of reasons why we need clean energy goes on for miles. The fossil fuel industry’s carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to the environment today, and we must act quickly to find sustainable, renewable energy sources to replace the power produced by dirty fossil fuels in order to maintain a liveable planet. Still, this need for urgency can easily slip from motivation and movement building to a major shift into white supremacy.
Urgency as white supremacy addresses the idea that in a state of urgency, people are made disposable and sacrificed for quick victories, and the need for inclusion and justice is ignored because nobody is willing to slow down and take time to thoughtfully incorporate these values. To combat this in our organization and movement, it is vital for both leadership and supporters to understand the necessity of justice, to recognize that most things will take longer than anyone realizes, and to incorporate justice, equity and inclusion into the core of all of our work.
As our chapter moves forward and issues like this continue to pop up, we are committed to reflecting deeply on where we stand in the environmental justice movement. This is vaguely uncharted territory now, but these complex paths toward a clean energy future for all people require us to educate ourselves constantly, listen to our frontline communities, and find ways to support just causes while also continuing to protect our environment. Though we are faced with many questions and few direct answers, we remain unwavering in our vision to drive positive change and to continue learning and adapting to the ever-changing climates – both physical and social. The climate’s future is only truly liveable if we take the time to make it that way for everyone.
If you want to support Friends of Minidoka, please provide written comments to MJ Byrne at mbyrne@blm.gov. Friends of Minidoka encourage you to submit comments by August 31, so that they can be shared with the Subcommittee at its September meeting. Please cc your comments to info@minidoka.org so they can have a record. They recommend that you send your comments – both organizational and individual – to your members of Congress and Senators.