EPICANTHUS

Aquila, the Tri-State High School yearbook of 1944 at first glance seems quiet commonplace: goofy-looking faculty, fresh-faced class officers, the prom queen and her court. But there are giveaways. First, Tri-State’s location: Newell, California, but more precisely, Tulelake, California, the infamous World War II segregation center for those deemed disloyal, renunciates and dissidents from the other nine War Relocation Authority internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII. Even the yearbook’s theme “Hope Out of Gloom” is not the naively upbeat message of a high school picture book. And then there are the subtle depictions of guard towers, machine guns, barbed wire. H/T  Mark Frauenfelder, boingboing.