The Internment Ordeal in a Post-Truth World

by Nicolangelo Becce

The volume explores how contemporary representations of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II are reshaping the collective memory of that painful experience, while at the same time implicitly offering a commentary on current limitations of human and civil rights in the United States. One of the worst cases of violation of civil liberties against an ethnic group in the history of the country, the Japanese American internment has recently become the subject of a renewed interest both in literature and in other popular media. With their rendition of events, twenty-first century authors and artists are offering a new, enriching, and more inclusive understanding of the incarceration experience, both in order to broaden the comprehension of that event and highlight how it is still relevant today. By analyzing works of literary fiction, memoirs, TV series, and graphic novels, this monograph argues that contemporary literature and other media play a significant role in the development of a new conversation about the internment experience.