they never asked
suspicious or not –
just put us away

By Sen Taro, a poet incarcerated by the U.S. Wartime Civil Control Administration in the 1940s

The exhibition they never asked examines systemic, racialized U.S. immigration enforcement and confinement, showing how creative expression and documentation can counter forced erasure. Tracing over 200 years of policy, the show features the artwork of Wheaton alumna Momo Nagano, who was incarcerated at Manzanar, an American concentration camp, during World War II, alongside Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh’s archival project the Index of the Disappeared. Local and historical resources include Mapping Deportations, a data visualization history project and book on Rhode Island detention created by Honora Spicer and Giancarlo Huapaya with the AMOR network.

The exhibition will be on display September 10–November 14, 2026.

Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 1–5 p.m., Thursday 1–8 p.m..

Join us for the opening reception of our first gallery exhibition of the academic year, they never asked. This exhibition examines systemic, racialized U.S. immigration enforcement and confinement, showing how creative expression and documentation can counter forced erasure. Tracing over 200 years of policy, the show features the artwork of Wheaton alumna Momo Nagano, who was incarcerated at Manzanar, an American concentration camp, during World War II, alongside Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh’s archival project the Index of the Disappeared. Local and historical resources include Mapping Deportations, a data visualization history project and book on Rhode Island detention created by Honora Spicer and Giancarlo Huapaya with the AMOR network.

The exhibition will be on display September 10–November 14, 2026. The galleries are open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 1–5 p.m., and Thursdays 1–8 p.m..

Olga Livshin will discuss how culture, translation, history, current events and her own biography intermingle in her 2019 book of poems, A Life Replaced, which reflects on the experience of living as an immigrant under the Trump administration and with Putin’s war on Ukraine looming. Raised in Odessa and Moscow, Livshin writes witness poetry about xenophobia, war, and strongmen at the helm on both sides of the world. The book braids original poetry in English with translations from Anna Akhmatova, the great poet of 20th-century Russia, and Vladimir Gandelsman, fellow immigrant and winner of the Moscow Reckoning, Russia’s highest prize for poetry. Livshin’s poems, translations, and essays appear in The Kenyon Review and Poetry International, and are widely published. She holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literature, and taught at the university level for a number of years before focusing on writing and translation.

Please join us in the May Room for a reception immediately following the lecture.
Sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University and by the Russian Department at Wheaton College.