Santa Fe Detention Center (NM)

One of the most fascinating parts of this work is that I am constantly learning new things about World War II and about the many occupations, incarcerations, and internments that took place during those years. In 2018, I learned that Santa Fe, NM was the site of a detention center where Japanese Americans and some Japanese Latin Americans were held.

Another truth about this work is that it is by nature collaborative; the historical record, especially for something as odious as a government’s wholesale jailing of its own citizens based on their ethnicity, is full of gaps and erasures. While this is frustrating for many reasons, it also means that new information pops up all the time, and sometimes in unlikely places. For instance, my husband sent me a link to a story about Santa Fe’s lesser-known history; tucked within the series of stories was a short piece about the WWII-era facility.