Canadian Studies is pleased to congratulate UC Berkeley graduate student Desirée Valadares, who won the third prize in the Rachel Tanur Prize for Visual Sociology. Hosted by the Social Science Research Council, the award recognizes students in the social sciences who incorporate visual analysis in their work.
Ms. Valadares' photograph, "Absent Presence: Residential Barracks at Manzanar National Historic Site", was taken during dissertation research funded in part by the Edward Hildebrand Award. The project compares historic preservation issues at several sites related to the WWII-era internment of people of Japanese descent in Canada and the United States. The photograph selected depicts the site of Manzanar Internment Camp in California, where over 10,000 Japanese-Americans were imprisoned between 1942-45. It conveys the haunting presence of a site that still conveys a powerful legacy despite of a lack of physical remains.
Desirée Valadares is currently pursuing a doctorate in architecture at UC Berkeley, with a focus on historical preservation, legal geography, and critical ethnic studies. For more information on her work, please visit her academic profile.