In the archival field, enhanced description practices support biographical work. This includes the ongoing News and Communication Services Records (RG 203) biographies project that seeks to further facilitate access and searchability of former faculty, staff, and students through the identification of individuals listed in Series 4 of the collection through the addition of short biographies to the collection’s finding aid. For each individual listed, the series contains biographical documents like resumes, newspaper clippings, and obituaries that include key points about an individual’s life and career. These points are often references to an individual’s positive contributions to society. As a result, the biographical documents, and biographical work these documents support, may overlook harmful causes that an individual supported or actively participated in. 

This is true of Oswald West, who served as the fourteenth governor of Oregon from 1911 to 1915. West did not attend nor work at Oregon State, but West Hall (former women’s residence hall and current Honors College Living-Learning Community) is named after him. RG 203 contains only one document related to West: a pamphlet advertising West Hall upon its construction in 1960. It reads:

Governor West’s single term of office has been called the most colorful in Oregon’s history… he laid plans for the state’s present highway system. He pushed through the farsighted legislation providing for public ownership of Oregon’s 400 miles of ocean beaches. He is responsible for the workmen’s compensation law, funds for caring for homeless children and foundlings, creation of the State Board of Control, and other notable changes. Students of this and future generations who make West Hall their campus home may well be proud to live in a hall named for such a vigorous, courageous, dedicated leader as the Honorable Oswald West.¹

However, in performing routine research outside of SCARC’s collections to write West’s biography, I discovered that he was also a proponent of eugenics law in Oregon. More specifically, he passed Oregon’s first forced sterilization law. 

Forced sterilization allowed physicians to sterilize patients without their consent, rendering the patient infertile. As a whole, sterilization laws were fundamentally Eurocentric and their racist foundations were concerned primarily with improving the white race by preventing the reproduction of individuals lawmakers saw as “unfit” to bear children.² In today’s terms, the victims of forced sterilization laws in the twentieth century included people of color, the mentally and physically disabled, criminals, the impoverished, queer people, and sexually active women. 

Eugenics was amongst West’s primary concerns during his term as governor. In his inaugural message to Oregon’s legislative assembly in 1911, West wrote, “Degenerates and the feeble-minded should not be allowed to reproduce their kind. Society should be protected from this curse.”³ He further wrote, “The State has been shocked by the recent exposures to degenerate practices… These degenerates slink, in all their infamy, through every city, contaminating the young, debauching the innocent, cursing the State.”⁴ West’s proposed solution was the implementation of eugenics laws. “Sterilization and emasculation offer an effective remedy,” he wrote. “I would recommend, therefore, that a statute be enacted making it the duty of our State penal and eleemosynary [adjective: related to charity; charitable] institutions to report all apparent cases of degeneracy to the State Board of Health. It should be made the duty of the said board to cause investigation to be made and, if the findings warrant, to cause such operations to be performed as will give society the protection it deserves.”⁵ West launched a “crusade against vice” in 1912 and thus urged the Oregon legislature to investigate “degeneracy.” ⁶

West was influenced by proponents of eugenics at the time. Bethenia Owens-Adair was a doctor and advocate for forced sterilization in Oregon. She authored and worked with Representative L. G. Lewelling to push a eugenics bill through the Oregon House of Representatives. On February 18, 1913, Governor West signed into law House Bill No. 69. The bill gave “broad powers to the state to sterilize citizens, regardless of the recommendations of medical, religious, and legal authorities.”⁷

The bill was signed into law in part due to the Portland Vice Scandal in 1912, which revealed a subculture for gay men in Portland, Oregon. The scandal “led states throughout the Northwest to strengthen and expand sodomy laws and, in the 1910s and 1920s, to encourage Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to adopt Eugenics programs that prescribed the sterilization of sex offenders.”⁸ By 1913, “sodomy” and the related phrase “crime against nature” in Oregon encompassed a breadth of sexual activity that was not completely defined, but did include oral and anal sexual activity.⁹ By categorizing these activities as sexual offenses, and by association, gay men and lesbian women as sex offenders, they were targeted as criminals. Moreover, the American Psychological Association “considered gender and orientation variance a mental illness in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” until 1987.¹⁰ Therefore, members of the queer community were also targeted for forced sterilization because the state considered their identity to be a mental illness. 

The 1913 bill went to referendum due to lobbying by the Oregon Anti-Sterilization League and did not pass. Thus, it was repealed before it went into effect.¹¹ The Oregon Anti-Sterilization League is credited for swaying public opinion on this vote. However, a new forced sterilization law was passed in 1917 by West’s successor, Governor James Withycombe, who stated: 

I am more and more convinced that the reproduction of the mentally unfit is absolutely wrong. Through our shortsighted inaction we are populating our State with imbeciles and criminals, insuring ever-increasing public expense and opening the way for disease, sorrow and tragedy for generations yet unborn… To mend this situation, I earnestly urge the passage of a sane Sterilization Act.¹² 

Withycombe, while not included in the contents of RG 203, was involved with Oregon State prior to serving in the state government. In 1898, he joined the Oregon State staff as a professor of agriculture, and in 1908, was appointed Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station. Withycombe Hall is named after the fifteenth Oregon governor. 

The bill passed by Withycombe did not require a referendum and the state formed the Board of Eugenics. This board included superintendents from state institutions like the Oregon State Hospital, the Eastern Oregon State Hospital, the State Penitentiary, and the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded. The board reviewed quarterly reports of inmates recommended for forceful sterilization.¹³ Inmates recommended for sterilization were those who were “feeble-minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sexual perverts. Habitual criminals were defined as those who have been convicted three times or more of a felony in any state, while moral degenerates and sexual perverts partly included homosexuals and promiscuous teenage girls.”¹⁴

Initially, the law did not require consent from individuals recommended for forced sterilization, but in 1923, state legislature changed the process for sterilization so that, “inmates and patients would be sterilized only if they consented or if a court determined that they should be forcibly sterilized.”¹⁵ Oftentimes, though, sterilization was used as a precondition for allowing individuals to leave state institutions. Thus, individuals often agreed to undergo sterilization if it allowed them their freedom. The statue was revised several more times through the twentieth century, stripping eugenic language and instead emphasizing prospective parents’ inability to care for children in 1935, removing additional eugenic language in 1967, and limiting the class of state wards considered for sterilization to mental hospital inmates in 1970.¹⁶

State-sponsored eugenic sterilization ended in 1983.¹⁷ From 1917 to 1983, over 2600 individuals were forced to endure sterilization in Oregon.¹⁸ While SCARC does not hold records directly related to Oswald West’s involvement in Oregon’s eugenics movement, enhanced descriptions for collections like RG 203 can give a more nuanced and informed approach to studying him, especially given his relationship with Oregon State. 

Grace Knutsen is the former lead student archivist at Special Collections and Archives Research Center. She is an Oregon State alumna and Master of Library and Information Science student.

1. News and Communication Services Records, 1940-2004, Special Collections and Archives Research Center, Oregon State University Libraries, Series 4 Reel 2. ↩︎
2. Katherine N. Bush, “Oregon’s Racial Purity Regime: The Influence of International Scientific Racism on Law Enforcement, Legislation, Public Health, and Incarceration in Portland, Oregon During the Victorian and Progressive Eras (1851-1917)” (MA thesis, Portland State University, 2021), PDXScholar (5677). https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5677/. ↩︎
3. Oswald West to the Twenty-Sixth Legislative Assembly Regular Session, 1911, “Inaugural Message, 1911,” Oregon State Archives, https://records.sos.state.or.us/ORSOSWebDrawer/Record/6777846/File/document. ↩︎
4. West to the Twenty-Sixth Legislative Assembly. ↩︎
5. Ibid. ↩︎
6. George Painter, “Oregon Sodomy Law,” Oregon Queer History Collective, accessed May 28, 2025, https://www.glapn.org/6070sodomylaw.html.  ↩︎
7. Josh Freeman, “Oregon Anti-Sterilization League,” Oregon Encyclopedia, May 24, 2022, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/oregon_anti-sterilization_league/. ↩︎
8. Peter Boag, “Portland Vice Scandal (1912-1913),” Oregon Encyclopedia, May 20, 2022, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/portland_vice_scandal_1912_1913_/#.XJHzxChKjIV. ↩︎
9. Mark A. Largent, “‘The Greatest Curse of the Race’: Eugenic Sterilization in Oregon, 1909-1983,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 103, no. 2 (2002): 196, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20615229. Painter, “Oregon Sodomy Law.” ↩︎
10. Julissa Coriano and Noah J. Duckett, “It Never Stopped: The Continued Violation of Forced, Coerced, and Involuntary Sterilization,” Delaware Collective Against Domestic Violence, accessed June 11, 2025, https://dcadv.org/blog/it-never-stopped-the-continued-violation-of-forced-coerced-and-involuntary-sterilization.html ↩︎
11. Lutz Caelber, “Oregon”, Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States, University of Vermont, accessed June 9, 2025.https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/OR/OR.html ↩︎
12. Paul A. Lombardo, “Republicans, Democrats, & Doctors: The Lawmakers Who Wrote Sterilization Laws.” The Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics: A Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics 51, no. 1 (2023): 123-130. https://doi.org/10.1017/jme.2023.47. ↩︎
13. Caelber, “Oregon.” ↩︎
14. Lawrence, “Oregon State Board of Eugenics.” ↩︎
15. Largent, “‘The Greatest Curse of the Race.’” ↩︎
16. Ibid. ↩︎
17. Lawrence, “Oregon State Board of Eugenics.” ↩︎
18. Deborah Josefson, “Oregon’s governor apologises for forced sterilisations.” British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition) 325 (2002): 1380. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.325.7377.1380/b. ↩︎

Roma are an ethnic group that originated in Northern India and migrated to Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries. The majority of Roma, also known as Romani, live across Europe, where they have faced persecution and segregation. During World War II, Romani were subjected to deportation, forced labor, and medical experimentation, and hundreds of thousands were executed in killing centers across Europe. This genocide decimated Roma populations and social networks, and they continued to face persecution after the war. Roma women were sterilized across Eastern Europe until the 1990s. Today, 90% of Romani in Europe live below the poverty line and face violence from other citizens and police.

Approximately one million Romani live in America. According to a 2020 Harvard study, discrimination is widespread even though many Americans know little about Roma. Many study participants described hiding their ethnic identity to avoid stereotyping or discrimination. Across the U.S., including in Oregon, Romani people have historically been harassed by police, subject to discriminatory housing and employment laws, and smeared as criminals. 

The term “gypsy” is considered derogatory by many Roma people. It comes from the word “Egyptian,” where many Europeans mistakenly believed the Romani came from. In 1971, at the First World Roma Congress, a majority of attendees voted to reject the use of the term “gypsy.” However, some still use it to self-identify. In the U.S., it has also come to signify a free-spirited person, or someone who moves from one place to another without settling down. In industries like logging or trucking, it can refer to independent contractors. These uses reference the traditional migratory lifestyle historically practiced by Roma. There is greater debate about whether these uses of “gypsy” are offensive. 

In our collections, “gypsy” is used as a descriptor of Romani people themselves, costumes and student events themed around Roma stereotypes, an adjective (as described above), and a logging term. Primarily, however, it refers to the “Asian gypsy moth” or “gypsy moth,” a group of invasive moth species that includes Lymantria dispar dispar, Lymantria dispar asiatica, L. d. japonica, L. albescens, L. umbrosa, and L. postalba. In 2021, the Entomological Society of America (ESA) voted to change the common names, and in 2022, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced new names for these species. Lymantria dispar dispar is now known as the “spongy moth,” and the rest are now the “flighted spongy moth complex.” According to APHIS, the name refers to the moths’ eggs, which have a “spongy” texture. This change avoids equating Roma with a pest insect, and is part of the ESA’s Better Common Names Project, which seeks to update names that refer to ethnic or racial groups. 

Around half of the uses of “gypsy” are mentioned in the collection finding aid or preliminary collection inventory. The rest appear in Oregon Digital scans of SCARC materials. SCARC describes the contents of its collections using the language and terminology of the collections themselves. In order to provide historical context and to enable standardized searching and access across our collections, we have retained the original wording in the collection descriptions. However, we have also added a note to each affected collection to inform users of its context, along with a link to the SCARC Special Collections and Archives Research Center Anti-Racist Actions website and this blog post. 

We acknowledge the racism represented by the term “gypsy” and the continued persecution that Roma face. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein. For more information about Roma in Oregon, we recommend Carol Silverman’s report for the Oregon Historical Society. Another great resource is the RomArchive, a digital archive for Roma art and culture.

Affected Collections

John D. Lattin Papers, 1941-2004

Thomas Kraemer Papers, 1908-2018

Gerald W. Williams Electronic Records, 1985-2008

Liz VanLeeuwen Spotted Owl Collection, 1973-2004

Gerald W. Williams Papers, 1854-2016

Gerald W. Williams Slides, 1961-2003

Research Accounting Office Records, 1935-2010

Entomology Department Records, 1887-2003

Extension and Experiment Station Communications Moving Images, 1937-2007

Beaver Yearbook Photographs, 1938-2005

Hans Plambeck Papers, 1900-1995

Barometer Campus Newspaper, 1896-2014

Oregon’s Agricultural Progress Magazine, 1953-2016

William L. Finley Papers, 1899-1946 (MSS Finley)

Staff Newsletter, 1961-2009

Annual Cruise, 1921-2000

The Lamplighter Literary Magazine, 1936-1945

The Manuscript, 1927-1932

Oregon State University Memorabilia Collection, ca. 1860-present

This work was completed in large part due to the initiative of Margot Pullen (Student Archivist) and the support of the Anti-Racist Description Team. Margot wrote this post and completed updates to collection finding aids.

In March 2023, a subset of archivists in our department began work on the challenging task of addressing the N-word within SCARC’s collection guides and digital objects. This project was launched as a component of a much larger effort to evaluate legacy description through an anti-racist lens, as led by the SCARC Arrangement and Description team.

A search of SCARC’s online resources revealed the presence of the N-word in fifteen oral history interview transcripts, three collection finding aids or container lists, three article or book manuscripts published on the SCARC website, and two event video transcripts that have also been published on the SCARC website. We addressed these instances in different ways, as follows.

Oral History Interviews

The N-word appeared most frequently in interviews conducted with members of the African American community, as housed in the African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection (OH 029) and the Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection (OH 042). For both collections, we added a statement on description to the collection finding aids reading, “Please be aware that some of the contents in [this collection] may be disturbing or activating. In several instances, interviewees relay stories that recount a culture of racism and the use of racist, derogatory language toward African Americans, including the N word. Connected to this are stories of trauma, both personal and community-wide.” A similar statement was added to the finding aid for the Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Collection (OH 026), which includes multiple “stories that recount a culture of racism, sexism and homophobia, and the use of derogatory and harmful language.”

In these and other instances, we also chose to add language to the abstracts used to describe oral history interviews as digital objects. For two particular interviews, we concluded abstracts as follows, “Throughout the interview, the narrator shares stories of persecution, abuse and subjugation of indigenous peoples. Connected to this are stories of trauma, both personal and community-wide. At one point in the interview, the narrator also uses racist, derogatory language to describe African Americans that is reflective of a broader culture of racism.”

Another interview abstract required different language: “ […] Specifically, the interviewer and narrator refer to place names that reflect a culture of racism and the use of racist, derogatory language toward African Americans, including the N word.”

Events Videos

Two past events recorded and transcribed by SCARC included use of or reference to the N-word. In one instance, a panel participant recalled his experience of being referred to by the slur, and in another case, a presenter displayed an archival document that used the term. For both resources, we added language to the event abstract warning users that aspects of the presentation may be disturbing or activating.

Article and Book Manuscripts

SCARC holds the papers of William Appleman Williams, a prominent radical historian who was a member of the OSU faculty in the 1970s and 1980s. As part of a past project, two article manuscripts as well as the text of an unpublished novel were released on the SCARC website. The articles included use of the N-word in reference to the historical treatment of African Americans, and the novel was reflective of Williams’ experience of race relations while on military assignment in Texas in the years following the conclusion of World War II. Neither of the articles were summarized with abstracts, so we chose instead to add parenthetical notes at the beginning of each piece, warning of Williams’ use of “racist, derogatory language to describe African Americans that is reflective of a broader culture of racism.” The unpublished novel is contextualized with a lengthy introduction, at the end of which we added a similar content warning.

Finding Aids and Container Lists

The presence of the N-word in three finding aids or container lists proved to be somewhat more difficult to address. In one instance, images of a location in Washington state that bore a racist place name were both cataloged in a collection container list, and also digitized and described in Oregon Digital. The location’s name was changed by the federal government in 1968, and we updated both the container list and the Oregon Digital records to indicate as much. However, we also chose to retain mention of the former name, with a note documenting the 1968 change.

In a second instance, a book title containing the N-word had been cataloged into the bibliography of a large collection finding aid. After discussion, we chose not to make any edits to the description for this item, since the bibliographic information for the book will remain permanent in library catalogs wherever this item is held.

Finally, another collection container list includes a description of a piece of logging equipment that appears to have been, perhaps formally, referred to in racist terms well into the twentieth century. We have contacted a colleague who is well-versed in the history of forestry to seek out an alternative term for the item, but have as yet not found a replacement name. As such, for the time being at least, this term remains extant in our collections descriptions, with the following additional context: “This name was given to a piece of equipment used to place logs in position on a carriage and to turn logs during sawing operations. Use of the term was commonplace in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” 

Relevant Collection Finding Aids and Digital Resources

• African American Railroad Porters Oral History Collection (OH 029)
• H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest Oral History Collection (OH 028)
• Horner Museum Oral History Collection (OH 010)
• Industrial Arts and Industrial Manufacturing Department Photographs (P 189)
• Oregon Black Pioneers Oral History Collection (OH 042)
• Oregon Pioneers Oral History Collection (OH 001)
• Oregon State University Sesquicentennial Oral History Collection (OH 026)
• Pacific Northwest Stream Survey Collection (MSS PNWStream)
• Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers (MSS Pauling)
• “Glory Road and the Desegregation of College Basketball” (panel discussion, May 17, 2011)
• “Shades of Color at OSC: The Untold Story of Palmer Patton” (presentation, February 24, 2020)
• “America As a Weary and Nostalgic Culture” (article manuscript)
• “Commencement Address, Columbia College, June 1984” (lecture manuscript)
• 90 Days Inside the Empire (unpublished novel)

Oregon State University boasts the title of Oregon’s largest public research university with thirteen research and experiment stations across the state. Some of these stations have been associated with Oregon State for nearly a century. Among them is the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center. Recent archival work dealing with this experiment center and its previous names has led SCARC to evaluate the use of the term “squaw” in our collections as part of our ongoing work to address racist, outdated, and inaccurate descriptive language in our finding aids.

The word “squaw” is derogatory. Historically, it has been used as a misogynist and racist slur to disparage Indigenous American women. Even so, the United States Department of the Interior reported in 2021 that 650 geographic sites in the United States contained the term in their name, including Squaw Butte in Lake County, Oregon. In the same report, the department stated its intent to rename each of these sites. As of January 2023, many of these sites had been renamed. The landform in Lake County is now known as Stairstep Butte. 

As a landmark topographic feature, this butte influenced the establishments surrounding it. Among these establishments is the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center. Historically, this field station was named Squaw Butte Range Livestock Station after the nearby mountain peak. 

The previous name of this station came to light via work on the News and Communications Services Records. Among the thousands of biographical materials in this collection are those of Carl Lawrence Foster, who was a professor of agriculture who worked at the station beginning in 1970. After writing Foster’s biography, SCARC staff researched and compiled the history of the station with particular attention to its name changes over the years. 

Established in 1935, the Squaw Butte Range Livestock Station merged in 1944 with the Harney Branch Station. The newly-formed station was named the Squaw Butte Harney Range and Livestock Experiment Station. This was renamed the Squaw Butte Experiment Station in 1954. Another merger occurred in 1974 with the Eastern Oregon Experiment Station under directors Martin Vavra and R. J. Raleigh, forming the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center.  

Although the station’s name was changed, it was not changed as an acknowledgement of the harmful nature of the original. Even after the merger, the 16,000 acres that had previously been the Squaw Butte Experiment Station were still referred to colloquially as “Squaw Butte Station” for several years by locals and Oregon State employees alike, as evidenced in the Oregon’s Agricultural Progress publications from winter 1976 and spring 1981. It appears that this nickname waned in use in the early 1990s. 

After the historical context of this experiment station was established, SCARC looked to other uses of “squaw” in its collections in order to evaluate its use and provide a similar context. Many other uses of the slur were in reference to the Squaw Butte Experiment Station, as well as geographic features across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, including valleys and creeks. Other times, the word was used in the context of colloquial species names, such as “squawfish” or “squaw grass”. However, in two collections (the Ralph I. Gifford Photographs and the Gerald W. Williams Prints and Postcards of Native Americans Collection), the slur is used to refer to Native American women. In both collections, the word is found in the captions and descriptions of images of these women.

SCARC acknowledges that the racism and misogyny represented by the term “squaw” may cause harm to our users. In order to provide historical context and enable standardized searching and access across our collections, we have retained the use of this phrase in collection descriptions. However, we have also added a note to each affected collection to inform users of its context, along with a link to the SCARC Special Collections and Archives Research Center Anti-Racist Actions website and this blog post. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein. 

List of SCARC Collections Reviewed: 

• Rangeland Resources Department Maps, 1936-1967 | MAPS Rangeland 
• Plans and Profiles of Oregon Rivers, 1923-1971 | MAPS RiverPlans
• Historic Oregon Topographic Maps, 1898-1993 | MAPS ORTopos
• Marian Field Collection, 1933-1982 | MSS Field
• William L. Finley Papers, 1899-1955 | MSS Finley  
• G. Burton Wood Papers, 1908-1987 | MSS Wood
• Gerald W. Williams Prints and Postcards of Native Americans Collection, 1887-1969 | P 317
• Jack Williams Slides, 1954-1960 | P 315
• College of Agricultural Sciences Photographs, 1892-2001 | P 036
• Frank Patterson Photographic Postcards, circa 1920s – 1986 | P 312
• Agricultural Experiment Station Photographic Collection, circa 1900-1988 | P 029
• Harriet’s Photograph Collection, circa 1868-1980 | P HC
• Robert W. Henderson Photographic Slides Collection, 1936-1998 | P 098 – SG1
• Agricultural Experiment Station Records, 1889-2002 | RG 025
• Contract Administration Records, 1889-1976 | RG 212
• Research Accounting Office Records, 1935-2010 | RG 026
• Facilities Services Records, 1888-2010 | RG 193
• Soil Science Department Records, 1918-1980 | RG 115 
• Bioresource Engineering Department Records, 1924-2004 | RG 001              
• Pacific Northwest Stream Survey Collection, 1931-1950 | MSS PNWStream
• Experiment Station Communications Films, 1974-1984 | FV 132 
• Extension and Experiment Station Communications Photograph Collection, 1912-1997 | P 120
• Experiment Station Publications Photographic Collection, 1949-1979 | P 132
• Ralph I. Gifford Photographs, circa 1910s – 1947 | P 218-SG 2
• Crop Science Department Records, 1925-2013 | RG 095
• Edwin Russell Jackman Photographic Collection, circa 1875-1964 | P089
• Oliver Matthews Photograph Collection, 1922-1964 | P 118 
• Office of University Publications and OSU Press Records, 1907-2007 | RG 018 
• Carl E. Bond Papers, 1944-2000 | MSS Bond 

This work was completed in large part due to the initiative of Grace Knutsen (Student Archivist) and the support of the Squaw subgroup: Anna Dvorak (Public Services Assistant), Natalia Fernández (Curator of the Oregon Multicultural Archives and OSU Queer Archives), and Cydney Hill (University Records Manager).

Contributed by Kevin Jones, Digital Collections and Metadata Archivist and Anne Bahde, History of Science and Rare Books Librarian

As part of our ongoing work to address racist, outdated, and inaccurate descriptive language in our finding aids, we recently looked at the use of the term “internment” and reviewed the descriptions in our collections for material related to Japanese and Japanese American incarceration in the United States during World War II.

We relied heavily on the guidance and recommendations created by the Reparative Archival Description Task Force at Yale Library. This task force consulted with Japanese American community groups to identify preferred terms to replace terminology that was racist or erased the harm done to Japanese and Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II represented in archival collections. Written between 2020 and 2021, the best practices put forth by this group include multiple recommendations related to the remediation of legacy descriptions for materials documenting the so-called internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. These recommendations include template language for inclusion in multiple fields available to authors of finding aids, as well as suggestions for language to use in MARC catalog records. Notably, the task force also published a table of eighteen terms related to the legacy internment era that itemize preferred community terms, local terms used by Yale (which often match the community terms), clarifying notes, and the sourcing for this work. Examples of terms considered in this table include: ‘incarceration’ as a replacement for ‘internment’; ‘incarceree’ as a replacement for ‘detainee’; ‘forced removal’ as a replacement for ‘evacuation’ or ‘relocation’; and ‘American concentration camp’ as a replacement for ‘internment camp.’ We highly recommend the use of these guidelines when undertaking similar work.

We reviewed the descriptions for seven collections in total. Several collections, such as the William H. Maas Scrapbook, the Hans Plambeck Papers, the Richard Y. Morita Papers, the Japanese-American Association of Lane County, Oregon, Oral History Collection, and the Rebecca Landis Papers, required fairly straightforward updating of legacy terms with alternative terms recommended from the Yale task force.

For all seven finding aids, a Statement on Description was also added that included this language:

“The terminology surrounding the legacy term ‘internment’ has been adjusted. Some materials in this collection use derogatory language to describe ethnic groups. We acknowledge the racism represented by the use of these phrases and the harm they may cause our users. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein.”

Two other collections required more consideration of these terms within the context of the collection.

Collection 1 ~ The Mildred and Frank Miles Scrapbook of the Santo Tomás Internment Camp describes the Miles’ experience of imprisonment at the afore-mentioned camp in Manila, Philippines for three years and one month. Largely because of the scrapbook’s geographical setting, this collection required additional consideration of the Yale terms within the context of the collection, as well as the addition of more precise subject headings, such as Concentration camps — Philippines. 

Statement on Description for the Mildred and Frank Miles Scrapbook of the Santo Tomás Internment Camp, 1942-1947 collection finding aid:

“The terminology surrounding the legacy term “internment” has been adjusted. Some materials in this collection use derogatory language to describe ethnic groups. We acknowledge the racism represented by the use of these phrases and the harm they may cause our users. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein.”

Collection 2 ~ Particularly regarding our collection of War Relocation Authority reports, the original descriptions in the finding aid mirrored the neutral social scientific language used in the reports. This “scientific” language erased the harm the incarceration and the act of researching imprisoned Japanese and Japanese Americans did to the prisoners. Following the guidelines, we attempted to replace existing language with recommended terms that more accurately reflects the damage done in and through these reports. “Internment” continues to show up in the finding aid where it is part of a formal name or title in keeping with the Yale guidance. This is both necessary because it is a matter of the historical record and also aids in research as many potential users have been educated using ‘internment’ as the reference term for Japanese American incarceration. We recognize that, while we attempted to be thorough, future revision to these and other descriptions may be necessary to further address as yet unrecognized bias. 

Statement on Description for the United States War Relocation Authority Reports, 1942-1946 collection finding aid:

“Please be aware that content within this collection may be disturbing or activating, and racist, derogatory language is used toward Japanese Americans and other groups. We acknowledge the racism represented by this language and the harm it may cause our users. Providing access to these historical materials does not endorse any attitudes or behavior depicted therein.”

~~~~~~~~~

In making these decisions, we recognize that future revisions to these and other descriptions may be necessary. In our teaching and outreach, we will also seek to continue pushing this conversation forward, such that legacy terms like “internment” might begin to lose their currency among researchers and become less of a concern with respect to issues of keyword searching.

Internment subgroup: Kevin Jones, Digital Collections and Metadata Archivist; Anne Bahde, History of Science and Rare Books Librarian; Julie Judkins, Department Head