Reclaiming the Southwest

In “Reclaiming the Southwest,” the term southwest is more than what we imagine. The southwest is not merely confined to the concept of space since the significance of the term southwest can break away from the linear time of Japanese American Interment narrative as it reconfigures the Southwest as a traumatic place. For instance, the sign is a way to broach the metaphorical meaning as a fixed concept. When we think of a sign, the idea of signifier is often to direct us a certain metaphorical significance or symbol derived from the cultural context or historical background. Accordingly, the term Southwest may conventionally signifies an isolated space from other traumatic events for some ethnic groups. Or the Southwest is limitedly viewed through the gazes from the tourists as well as under the gaze of hegemonic power. However, the article mentions that “arrowhead,” the ancient object remained by the Indian warrior, can be a portal of the association with the Indian groups. In Yoshiko Uchida’s memoir, Desert Exile, the old arrowhead is like a referent veiled as it directs the internees in search for such hidden treasure inside the camp grounds. Nevertheless, the old arrowhead discovered in Uchida’s Journey to Topaz unexpectedly leads the child narrator to recall the condition regarding how Indians were hunting and fishing around what once the lake river even though the river was dried up with thousands of Japanese who live upon it. Seen in this light, the Southwest can be a place as Japanese internees respond to the Indian groups in terms of their living surrounding for turning the abstract concept of space into a place. Such place not only bears the internee’s traumatic experiences but also renders a passage toward the traumatic experiences by relating to other ethnic groups.