You're invited to The Gail Project: An Okinawan-American Dialogue
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 5, 5:00-7:00 pm
Remarks at 6:00 pm
image credit: Charles E. Gail © Geri Gail
The Gail Project is a collaborative, international public history project that explores the founding years of the American military occupation of Okinawa. The project is inspired by a collection of photos taken in Okinawa in 1952 by an American Army Captain: Charles Eugene Gail. The photos were generously donated to Special Collections at McHenry Library by Charles' daughter, Geri Gail, and have since been made available for student research. Our team of faculty, staff and undergraduate students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, developing a traveling exhibition of Gail's photographs with an accompanying digital archive that is comprised of the photos, key texts and documents, oral histories from both American and Okinawan. We believe that using the photographs as a lens through which this view the crucial time is relevant to populations throughout Okinawa, Japan, the United States and the entire Pacific region, and we aim to establish A dialogue by shedding light on both historical and contemporary issues.