Cities of Refuge – A project exploring new forms of history, memory, and solidarity-work linking the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans to current issues, including activism around the Muslim ban and associated forms of Islamophobia, the indefinite detention and aggressive deportation of immigrants of color, anti-refugee policies and sentiment, and the mass incarceration and racial profiling of African Americans.

Welcome to the Cities of Refuge!

This space is currently being occupied by visitors from the WATARIDORI: birds of passage multisite installation operating out of four locations in Philadelphia, PA.

Check back in this space regularly for new installments of “Apparitions of the Non-Alien: Philadelphia,” a serial essay. Portions of this essay also appear in a booklet available through the Asian Arts Initiative.

To follow the ghost, click here.

(About the writer: Vince Schleitwiler)

To follow the birds, click here.

(About the artist: Rea Tajiri)