VOA标准英语2011--Japanese-American Internment Camp Site R

Japanese-American Internment¹ Camp Site Reopens as Museum

The site of a Japanese internment camp during World War II has been transformed into the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center in Wyoming. The grand opening is this weekend.
During World World II, as the United States battled Japan and the other Axis² powers, 14,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated³ at a remote camp. Ex-internees, their descendants and local residents worked together to develop a place that would tell the stories of the forced relocation and teach its visitors lessons for the future.
Back in time
The road to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, is lined with golden fields of hay in late summer. The landscape is mostly empty until a tall smokestack appears on the horizon, growing into a vertical⁴ dark line above the fields. It’s all that remains⁵ of the hospital at Heart Mountain Internment Camp. Then Heart Mountain itself looms⁶ in the distance.
Replicas⁷ of barracks have been erected⁸ where the original camp stood. They house the Heart Mountain Interpretive Learning Center. Walking into the newly opened museum is to travel back in time, surrounded by the faces and voices of those who were held here against their will.
Steve Leger, the center’s executive director, leads the way past an exhibit showing the internment orders that were posted in Western cities.
In the hysteria that followed Japan’s surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese-American families across the West were ordered to pack what they could carry and get on trains headed to isolated⁹ camps like the one at Heart Mountain.
At the time, the camp was the third largest town in Wyoming.
Exhibits follow the timeline, from normal life on the West Coast to sudden deportation¹⁰. The history is written as first-person accounts with recorded testimony¹¹ by ex-internees.
Acknowleding internees' plight¹²
Ten Japanese internment camps were set up during the war. Only two have established centers to acknowledge and pay tribute to what internees went through. The museum at Manzanar, in California, is run by the federal government.
Heart Mountain was set up by a private non-profit organization. Shirley Ann Higuchi, whose parents were interned¹³ here as children, is the chairman of the mostly Japanese-American board responsible for running the center.
She learned only recently about the importance of Heart Mountain to her parents, who were second-generation Japanese-Americans, or Nisei.
"When this experience occurred, the Nisei, being the quiet American and not talking much about this, their philosophy was to always look ahead, to endure, to keep on pushing forward and don’t look back," says Higuchi. "I think part of what occurred during that process was they really didn’t have the time to really process this and grieve and get angry."
This learning center, she says, is one way to help the Japanese-American community do that and heal.
Time for reflection
Board member Doug Nelson says that the issues addressed by the center are relevant today, as the nation confronts a different enemy.
"Throughout American history, but you don’t have to think too much beyond today, the effort to balance our national security with our protection of people’s individual civil rights has always been in time of war or national anxiety, has always been a difficult balancing act."
In that respect, Nelson hopes the center will provide the opportunity for education, as well as reflection.
He notes that during the war, some of the camp’s neighbors accepted the argument that Japanese-Americans were a threat to the United States. Others rejected that idea, and sympathized with and befriended internees. In fact, it was local residents who wanted to establish the center and got former internees involved.
In addition to their memories, those who spent time here contributed artifacts and photographs.
Higuchi walks from a life-size image of her parents as adolescents at the camp to a more recent photo taken at an annual reunion. Several generations of internees and their families smile as they stand atop Heart Mountain.
Higuchi reads a quote from an elderly man who returned for the reunion. "I return to Heart Mountain to grieve, for all that was taken from us, our homes our lives, our voices. I return to Heart Mountain to celebrate the strong spirit that helped us survive, the traditions we kept and treasured and the bravery, creativity and courage of people who faced prejudice and hardship with dignity and determination. I return to Heart Mountain to remember."

1 internment   

n.拘留

参考例句：

• Certainly the recent attacks against the internment camps are evidence enough. 很明显，最近营地遭受到的攻击就是一个足好的证明。 来自互联网
• The chapters on the internment are Both readaBle and well researched. 这些关于拘留的章节不仅具可读性而且研究得很透彻。 来自互联网

2 axis   

n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线

参考例句：

• The earth's axis is the line between the North and South Poles.地轴是南北极之间的线。
• The axis of a circle is its diameter.圆的轴线是其直径。

3 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

4 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

5 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

6 looms   

n.织布机( loom的名词复数 )v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的第三人称单数 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近

参考例句：

• All were busily engaged,men at their ploughs,women at their looms. 大家都很忙，男的耕田，女的织布。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The factory has twenty-five looms. 那家工厂有25台织布机。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 replicas   

n.复制品( replica的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His hobby is building replicas of cars. 他的爱好是制作汽车的复制品。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The replicas are made by using a thin film of fusible alloy on a stiffening platen. 复制是用附着在加强托板上的可熔合金薄膜实现的。 来自辞典例句

8 ERECTED   

adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立

参考例句：

• A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
• A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。

9 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

10 deportation   

n.驱逐，放逐

参考例句：

• The government issued a deportation order against the four men.政府发出了对那4名男子的驱逐令。
• Years ago convicted criminals in England could face deportation to Australia.很多年以前，英国已定罪的犯人可能被驱逐到澳大利亚。

11 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

12 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

13 interned   

v.拘留，关押( intern的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was interned but,as he was in no way implicated in war crimes,was released. 他曾被拘留过，但因未曾涉嫌战争罪行而被释放了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These soldiers were interned in a neutral country until the war was over. 这些士兵被拘留在一个中立国，直到战争结束。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》