The JASC Legacy Center Presents A “Memories of Now” Seminar Series Presentation.
Co-sponsored by the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society (CJAHS) and JACL Chicago.
This program is made possible in part by a grant from Illinois Humanities, with support from the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
6:00pm – 8:00pm
At the JASC (4427 N Clark St.)
A. Naomi Paik will address themes raised in her new book, Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II, which grapples with the history of U.S. prison camps that have confined people outside the boundaries of legal and civil rights. Removed from the social and political communities that would guarantee fundamental legal protections, these detainees are effectively rightless, stripped of the right even to have rights. Specifically, this talk will focus on the redress of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, achieved through the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. While a landmark achievement gained through the organizing and activism of Japanese Americans and allies, the redress act also limited its analysis of internment’s injustice in ways that hindered its lessons for the future, as seen in the redeployment of prison camps for other marginalized peoples, like refugees, migrants, and so-called “enemy combatants” of the War on Terror.
Featured Speaker: Professor A. Naomi Paik, UIUC
Speaker Bio:
A. Naomi Paik is an assistant professor of Asian American studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. Her book, Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II (UNC Press, 2016; winner, Best Book in History, AAAS 2018; runner-up, John Hope Franklin prize for best book in American Studies, ASA, 2017), reads testimonial narratives of subjects rendered rightless by the U.S. state through their imprisonment in camps.
She has published articles in Social Text, Radical History Review, Cultural Dynamics, Race & Class, and the collection Guantánamo and American Empire and has forthcoming articles in Humanity and e- misferica. She is currently writing Walls, Bans, Raids, Sanctuary (under contract with University of California Press), a short book on the criminalization of migrants in the U.S. and radical sanctuary movements. She is also developing a new project on military outsourcing. Her research and teaching interests include comparative ethnic studies; U.S. imperialism; U.S. militarism; social and cultural approaches to legal studies; transnational and women of color feminisms; carceral spaces; and labor, race, and migration.
Event is Free; Parking available in JASC parking lot
RSVP with Ryan Yokota: 773-275-0097, ext. 222 | ryokota@jasc-chicago.org.
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