Many American families have a history of migration and relocation in their own pasts—for many the movement was voluntary, but for others it was forced. The relocation of the Aleuts—which is little known outside Alaska—is a uniquely tragic variation of this fundamental element of American history. There is an excellent documentary detailing these events produced and financed by the Aleut organization that successfully petitioned Congress for reparations. Rather than duplicate those stories, composer Stefan Hakenberg and I tried to broaden the examination—for instance by asking how a person comes to understand the history of another group within our American society.

The documentary is in four movements. The first, second, and fourth parts of this work address issues directly raised by the historical events. The American government treated German P.O.W.s much more favorably than it did its own Aleut-American citizens. There were camps for both in Southeast Alaska. This remarkable disparity highlights the intersection of ethnicity and nationality with political power. Military officials were concerned that any ill treatment of German P.O.W.s would result in the starvation of Americans held in Europe—a fear which turned out to be justified. Though American citizens, the Aleut detainees held no such “power” against officials of their own government.

In the third, more abstract movement, we examine our own discoveries of the history of the Aleut relocation and how it resonated with our personal histories, and how it affected our collaborative vision as composer and filmmaker. This is a story with multiple paths. It would be easy to reduce Aleut identity to that of helpless native, and the U.S. Military to arrogant oppressor. The real history is much more complex and open ended: our attempt in making this work was to run down all of those historical paths at once. By using images and music, we hope to prompt the viewer into asking questions about whether the treatment dealt the Aleut-Americans could happen again, perhaps this time to their own ethnic, national, or racial group.