Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange. Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adam’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration

The history of Japanese Canadians, including their incarceration and forced labour during World War II that was euphemistically called a relocation, was ably recounted in Pamela Hickman and Masako Fukawa’s Righting Canada’s Wrongs: Japanese Canadian Internment in the Second World War. In many ways, the removal of Americans of Japanese descent from the west coast of the United States was very similar to the situation in Canada. In Seen and Unseen, author Partridge, a goddaughter of Dorothea Lange, and illustrator Tamaki, a fourth-generation Japanese Canadian now living in New York, use illustrations and historic photographs taken by three photographers to tell stories of the Japanese Americans relocated to the prison camp Manzanar in eastern California. In total, some 100,000 Japanese (Issei) and Japanese Americans (Nisei) were sent to 10 prison camps spread around continental United States. A map on the front endpapers shows the names and locations of the camps as well as the temporary detention centers that were mostly located in the state of California.

Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) is perhaps best remembered for her documentary photographs depicting the poverty and destitution of many Americans during the Great Depression. She worked for the War Relocation Authority (WRA) between March and July 1942 documenting conditions of the Japanese Americans, most notably at Tanforan, a temporary detention center where people were forced to shelter in horse stalls, and then later at the prison camp Manzanar. In Manzanar, the imprisoned lived in hastily assembled barracks that allowed little privacy, let sand permeate the residences from summer dust storms and allowed cold air to chill the people during the winter. Most of the photos that Lange took were impounded or censored by her boss who was anxious to only allow images that fit a propaganda narrative about humane treatment of the people incarcerated. Some images were released to magazines and newspapers. Lange was not allowed to photograph the guard towers, communal washrooms, and the barbed-wire fencing that surrounded the camp. Two pictures of a woman in a vegetable garden with a military overseer pose an unanswerable question: Why was one image impounded but the related one was not?

Toyo Miyatake (1895-1979) was a teenager when his siblings and mother immigrated to Los Angeles where his father had prepared a home for them. As an adult, he became a photographer operating a commercial studio in LA’s Little Tokyo neighborhood. Internees were forbidden from bringing cameras or radios with them, but he smuggled a camera lens into Manzanar and was assisted by fellow internees who helped him build a box camera disguised as a lunch box. In order to get film and chemicals for developing the photographs, he was able to network with others who smuggled supplies to him. Some of his images include the guard tower and a row of toilets that were off bounds as subjects for Lange. Later, following an uprising at the camp, Miyatake was approached by the director to operate an approved studio in the camp in order to document special events such as weddings, birthdays and funerals. After the war, Miyatake was able to rebuild his photography business in the Los Angeles area, and the firm is now operated by his grandson who shares many photographs from the period on his business website.

By the fall of 1943, some of the prisoners who had signed a loyalty questionnaire to the satisfaction of the government were allowed to resettle in the central portion of the continent where they were considered less of a risk and could continue schooling or find work or, in some cases, enlist in a segregated fighting unit consisting of only Japanese Americans. Those who answered no to questions about their willingness to fight for the US military and to swear allegiance to the American government and denounce any former allegiance to the Japanese emperor were sent to another prison, Tule Lake, where tanks patrolled the perimeter.

The director at Manzanar was concerned that the people released back into society would face harsh discrimination and distrust by other Americans. In the fall of 1943, he invited his friend, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), to photograph the internees to show the rest of America that they were hardworking, cheerful and resilient people. Adams staged or posed the subjects to help tell a positive story about the residents and their living conditions. Adams’ photographs from Manzanar are now at the Library of Congress where they have been digitized and thus made more accessible.

Partridge uses the lens (excuse the pun) of the three photographers to tell the story of Japanese American internment and the abuse of their constitutional rights. The actual photographs reproduced are a significant part of the work, but the text and especially the illustrations by Tamaki are interwoven to bring a more fulsome account of this part of American history to a new generation of readers. Tamaki’s beautifully executed images range from vibrantly coloured to more subdued but warm pastel colours to black and grey drawings with heavy use of washes. Apart from the photographs, some archival documents are reproduced, including a broadside posted in April 1942 instructing all persons of Japanese ancestry to prepare for relocation, a Name/Number tag affixed to people when they were first rounded up, an example of a “Citizen’s Indefinite Leave” identification card issued upon release from a camp, and an example of the instruction sheet issued to the few thousand residents remaining at Manzanar in October of 1945 post Japanese surrender as efforts redoubled to close the camp.

In the end matter, Partridge includes a very brief discussion of Japanese American lives after the war leading to the 1988 Civil Liberties Act signed by President Reagan and the reparations paid to the Japanese American survivors of internment. She also addresses the violation of citizenship, civil liberties and the American Constitution in the treatment of the Japanese Americans. Tamaki includes a short essay, “The damage of the model minority myth.” Additional end matter are brief biographies of the three photographers and detailed photo credits. Acknowledgements and publication data spill onto the closing end papers.

Older readers could use Seen and Unseen in a study examining similarities and differences in the treatment of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians. It can be used in media studies to develop critical thinking skills by looking at photographic images to determine what is actually shown or not shown and how this may shape a narrative.Seen and Unseen is also a good introduction to the use of primary sources in understanding social history.