Episode 202: World War II in Alaska: Alaska Native Resilience, Relocation, and Resistance with Holly Miowak Guise
Episode Summary
World War II reached far beyond the beaches of Normandy and the islands of the Pacific. It also came to Alaska, where Indigenous communities found themselves on the front lines of invasion, military occupation, and forced relocation.
In this episode of Reckoning with Jason Herbert, historian Holly Miowak Guise discusses her groundbreaking book Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II. Drawing on more than 90 oral history interviews with Alaska Native elders, Guise reveals how Alaska Native communities experienced the Aleutian Campaign, wartime relocation camps, segregation, military service, and the ongoing realities of colonialism in America's far north.
Together, we explore the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands, the forced evacuation of Indigenous communities, Alaska Native military service, the power of oral history, and the ways Native peoples resisted, adapted, and rebuilt their communities in the aftermath of war.
This conversation challenges familiar narratives of the "Good War" and offers a powerful reminder that some of the most important stories of World War II remain largely unknown.
About Holly Guise
Holly Miowak Guise, Ph.D., (Iñupiaq) is an independent historian. She is the author of the multi-award-winning book Alaska Native Resilience: Voices from World War II. She has received the Western History Association’s 2025 Robert M. Utley Award for the best book on military history of the frontier and western North America, 2025 John C. Ewers Award for the best book on North American Indian ethnohistory, 2025 Robert G. Athearn Award for the best book on the twentieth-century American West; and the Denver Public Library’s Special Collections and Archives’ 2025 Caroline Bancroft History Prize for the best book on Colorado or Western American history. Holly is the founder and developer of ww2alaska.com, dedicated to rendering visible the experiences of Alaska Native elders and veterans. She serves on the editorial board of the Alaska History journal.