Until I found Karen Hesse’s lovely, haunting verse novel Aleutian Sparrow (2003), I had no idea that the Aleut people–Native Alaskans who had lived for thousands of years on the spare, windswept Aleutian Islands off of Alaska–had been forcibly removed by the U.S. government. Citing fears of a Japanese invasion, the government insisted that the 881 Aleuts living in villages across the islands must be evacuated and moved inland to an entirely different landscape and climate.
The internment was disastrous to the 9,000 year old Aleut culture: Aleut people could no longer feed themselves because there was nowhere to fish and they could not treat illnesses or injuries because none of their medicinal plants grew where they were interned. Shelter, sanitation, and health care were vastly inadequate. In short, government neglect, racism, and disinterest insured that conditions were brutal. These links help to tell the Aleuts’ story.
- “Agony of the Aleutians,” Alaska Daily News
- “Alaska’s Aleuts: Forgotten Internees of WWII,” Los Angeles Times
- “Timeline on Aleut Internment,” Native Voices
- “Aleut Internment,” AAANative Arts
- “Aleut Internment During WWII,” Alaska Web
- “Unangan evacuated, interned during WW II,” National Library of Medicine/Native Voices
- “Understanding Forcible Removal Through Maps,” National Park Service
- “The Aleut Evacuation: A Grave Injustice,” Alaska Humanities Forum
- “U.S. Forcibly Detained Native Alaskans During World War II,” Smithsonian Magazine
- “The Lost Internment,” G. Edward White
- “Unangax̂ (Aleut) Relocation during World War II” Alaska State Archives
- “Cultural Heritage of the Aleuts,” Science Education Resource Center of Carleton College
- “After WWII internment apology, a new generation of Aleuts seek out history” KTOO Public Media
- “Aleut Epitaph at Funter Bay: Human Rights and Constitutional Rights Violations at U.S. Internment Camps,” The Modern American/Alice Hilton
- “The Legacy of Unjust and Illegal Treatment of Unangan During World War II and Its Place in Unangan History,” Carlene Arnold
- “October 10, 1942: Petition from Aleut Women,” Zinn Education Project
- “The Other American-Internment Atrocity,” NPR