|
Digital Humanities Learning Through Interconnected Individual Stories

Tumblr Blog

  • ROUTES Blog
    • 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0

    • narrative junkie: Two Chinese students, found and lost in Boston.

      chowleen:

      2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 A rare scholarly bright spot amidst a brutal week of news: today was the official launch of the Digital Public Library of America:

      3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 image

      4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 (From the NOBLE Digital Heritage collection, hat tip Rebecca Nedostop)

      5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 It is a treasure-trove of goodies, including this 1879 Boston studio portrait of …

      6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 04/20/13

    • photo from Tumblr

      7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Interested in a first-hand account of the Doolittle Raid? Check out the book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo! Upon crash landing on the Chinese coast, Lawson’s mouth was bashed in upon impact, arm severed, and leg badly torn. Doc White managed to remedy most of Lawson’s injuries and those of the other raiders, but was unable to salvage Lawson’s leg. The book gives Lawson’s account from the in-depth perspective of a pilot, later retelling the horror of his leg beginning to fester and Doc White’s amputating it using limited medical supplies. It’s a fascinating journey, which gives a heightened appreciation for the danger these Americans were in as they evaded capture by the Japanese for the month spent traversing China after the raid. 

      8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 - Liam Town


      9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 03/15/13

    • photo from Tumblr

      10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 Here’s an unedited photo of a North American B-25 Mitchell undergoing restoration, which I recently took at the March Field Air Museum in Riverside, California. Bombers like this were used during the Doolittle Raid of 1942, which marked the first time The United States struck the Japanese homeland. 

      11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 -Liam


      12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 02/02/13

    • photo from Tumblr

      13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Want an artistic glimpse of the 2012 Routes trip to Japan? Check out this photo gallery by photographer Liam Townsend:

      14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 http://liamtown.deviantart.com/gallery/38288053


      15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 01/16/13

    • Back to the Drawing Board

      16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0

      16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 by Jeffrey Sun

      17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 Time to revive the Tumblr side of Routes. Lots of cool things have happened since last early December, especially the Routes + Japanese Language Students trip to Japan! More importantly, lots of cool things to add! It was so short-lived, too fast in my opinion, but I’m sure it changed many lives, if not everyone involved.

      18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 01/04/13

    • photo from Tumblr

      19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 The Routes crew at dinner in Kyoto, Japan. 

      20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 -Liam


      21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 07/28/12

    • photo from Tumblr

      22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 This is Japanese money from around 1935 to 1942. Clyndon Dollar carried it out with him when he returned to the United States after WWII. It seemed as though during his experience as a POW he may have actually been paid money for the forced labor engaged in after being captured.

      23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 Some Context: Legacy of Forced Labor

      24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0      Whether a POW or Civilian Internee was paid depended on the camp they were in. According to Linda Holmes’s book “Unjust Enrichment”,  post war interviews with survivors showed that most denied being paid anything. Holmes recognizes that while their denial may be true, in some cases Japanese corporations that ran the labor jobs many prisoners found themselves in, may have been provided an actual wage.Whether or not Prisoners received the money depended on whether they would not only survive but whether their captors would actually pay agreed upon wages. POWs working for Metsui were told they would be paid wage on scale with prewar employment practices and that, “most of the their pay would be deposited in a Postal Savings accounts and distributed when the war was over.”(30)  In other cases the prisoners were forced to sign a pay sheet, saying that they had been not only paid but had allowed for deductions for necessary items like mosquito nets and more food;even though these items were never given to prisoners (31). Discussion over payment of POWs and Civilian Internees negates the fact that in the end these men were being held against their will and thus wages of any kind seem to arbitrary, especially when considering the amount  that was “officially” recorded by post war accounts.

      25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0     According to Holmes a post war Japanese government report in 1955 on POW welfare indicated that POWs were only making the equivalent of three cents a day. (30) Adding to this low wage was the hopeless fact that even with wages, Prisoners had no way of actually buying anything inside their prison camps. 

      26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0      Although the payment of POW and Civilian Internee laborers has been a lingering injustice, the final representation of blame is what truly characterizes the nature of what this money represents. For many prison camp survivors the  circumstances and level of money prisoners received for the labor they conducted during the pacific war is overshadowed by the overall violation of international law that the Japanese were participating in. For many Prisoners the very fact that they were taking place in wartime manufacturing and labor was their main grievance. Using prisoners of war or civilian internees was against Article 13 of the Geneva Conventions. The violation of this international law coincided with Japanese Companies being allowed to use POW and Civilian Internee labor. This becomes a major sources of contention for survivor because the corporations that utilized their labor are still in business today.

      27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0      Nearly 50 Companies used war prisoner labor. Corporations like Kawasaki, Mitsui and Mitsubishi used the thousands of POW and Civilian Internees and subjected them to harsh conditions that killed many of them. For the ones that survived money could not repay the trauma they suffered.

      28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0      Although we are still looking into how exactly Clyndon Dollar gain possession of this money, it has been interesting to look at one possible explanation.

      29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 Holmes, Linda Goetz. Unjust Enrichment: How Japan’s Companies Built Postwar Fortunes Using American POWs. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2001. Print.


      30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 0 05/24/12

    • photo from Tumblr

      31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0 Laser Cut Seaweed for Sushi Rolls
      Tomas, boredpanda.com

      32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 0 To help boost the weak sales of Japan­ese nori man­u­fac­tur­er that was affect­ed by the 2011 tsuna­mi, I&S BBDO, a Japan­ese ad agency, devel­oped a series of intri­cate­ly laser-cut sea­weed. Each sheet from “design nori” series – Saku­ra (Cher…

      33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0 Amazing maki sushi!


      34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 0 05/17/12

    • photo from Tumblr

      35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 0 Transparent House in Japan
      Lina, boredpanda.com

      36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 0 If you say you have noth­ing to hide, try spend­ing a few nights in the see-through house locat­ed in Tokyo, Japan. Built by Sou Fuji­mo­to Archi­tects, this 914 square-foot trans­par­ent house was inspired by our ancient pre­de­ces­sors who…

      37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 0 Transparent house in Tokyo!


      38 Leave a comment on paragraph 38 0 05/17/12

    • photo from Tumblr

      39 Leave a comment on paragraph 39 0 Trip to the National Archives in San Bruno
       by Thomas Dollar

      40 Leave a comment on paragraph 40 0 While researching my grandfather, Clyndon Dollar, it became apparent to me that I could not solely rely on letters and document he left behind. I realized that in order to better understand the story of Clyndon Dollar and his journey through the Japanese Empire I had to get a better context of why he was on Wake Island in the first place. Through gather the context of the Wake Island civilian story one can fully grasp the structure of both the Japanese and American Empire. Thus I decided to put down my books make arrangements to see what could be found at the nearby National Archives. After talking with an archivist at the National Archives in San Bruno, it became apparent that a trip to archives would yield some helpful research.

      41 Leave a comment on paragraph 41 0 Upon arriving at the archive and filling out the necessary paper work I met with the archivist and he showed me all the files he had available on the subject of Wake Island. He explained that the main bulk of the documentation was a 1939 report on defensive potential for the largely inhabited atoll.

      42 Leave a comment on paragraph 42 0 As I had already known from other histories, Wake Island had initially been a refueling air station for Pan American Airways. If you actually watch the beginning of “Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark” you can see Indiana Jones even stops in at Wake Island on a Pan American flight. However as early as 1935 the US government was contemplating the use of Wake Island as an airbase to counter the potential threat of the Japanese Empire. The only problem was that the 1930’s United States still had the sour taste of World War I and thus remained opposed to any expansions of the United States. This policy of isolationism made building a base on Wake Island very difficult to accomplish.

      43 Leave a comment on paragraph 43 0 Amidst this context, I began looking through the documents before me. Using the archive’s camera stand I was able to take  photos of all the documents to use later if I needed to. The majority of the documents seemed to be very detailed estimations of what was needed to make all the necessary infrastructure for an air base. The in depth report also contained several photos which added are great for giving a visual of what life was like on the island. After looking through near 200 page report, the significance of what I was looking at became clear. Most of the documents were dated in 1939, just two year before the war. Even more startling was the realization the civilians didn’t arrive on Wake to start working until the spring of 1941, giving them very little time to complete their projects before the war began. The irony of this seems obvious in hindsight, but the contrast of the preparedness of the Japan vs. the ill preparedness the United States is striking. While the Japanese Navy and Army had already entrenched bases in the Marianas and former German holdings, the US armed forces were still in the planning stages of making bases.

      44 Leave a comment on paragraph 44 0 The material gathered at the San Bruno Archives was very helpful in providing evidence for why Wake Island’s civilians were on the island. It also helped me realize that Clyndon Dollar’s story can be placed within the context of understanding how the isolationist policy of the United States came into direct confrontation with the militarist policies of the Japanese Empire.


      45 Leave a comment on paragraph 45 0 05/16/12

46 Leave a comment on paragraph 46 0

Source: http://routes.ucsc.edu/?page_id=94