Modern Architectures of North America

Garden

Countering the disparaging design of the buildings, and unable to use their bodies and voices in protest, the Japanese American detainees revolted against their treatments instead through the architecture. One of the mechanisms through which the Japanese Americans achieved this was through gardens. The Japanese Americans not only used the gardens as “acts of resistance” but often used “their environmental conditions to get actual concessions from the War Relocation Authority” (Academic Spotlight Faculty Research, Performance and Exhibitions). By creating more normalized worlds within the camps, the Japanese Americans began to push back against stereotypes that labeled them as a dangerous ‘other’ worthy of being separated from society.

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