The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 4 | Issue 11 | Article ID 2260 | Nov 02, 2006

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Internment Without Charges: Dorothea Lange and theCensored Images of Japanese American Internment

Linda Gordon

Internment Without Charges:Dorothea Lange and the CensoredImages of Japanese AmericanInternment

By Linda Gordon

In 1942 the U.S. War Relocation Authorityhired documentary photographer DorotheaLange to photograph the World War IIinternment of approximately 120,000 JapaneseAmericans. Lange is now a world-famousdocumentary photographer, best known forchronicling the Great Depression of the 1930s.Her work is the subject of more than a dozenglossy art books. Even those who do not knowher name will recognize some of her pictures.One of her photographs has been called themost famous image in the U.S.

Photograph known as “Migrant Mother”

In October 2005 her photograph of the "WhiteAngel Bread Line" sold at auction for $822,400,at that time the second highest price ever paidfor a photograph.

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“White Angel Bread Line”

Between February and July 1942 Lange workedassiduously to cover the internment throughoutCal i fornia . She made more than 800photographs. But some military authority foundthem so evidently critical that the photographswere impounded for the duration of the war.Afterwards they were quietly placed in the U.S.National Archives where, because they aregovernment property, they are in the publicdomain—free to be used by anyone for anypurpose whatsoever.

A few scholars have published a small numberof the photographs—fewer than six, to myknowledge—but they have never beenpublished or exhibited as a group. This issurprising, given Lange’s reputation, and thefact that the U.S. government officiallyapologized for the unjustified and racistinternment of 120,000 Japanese Americans. Aselection of these photographs, approximately

one-eighth of the total, are now published forthe first time in Impounded: Dorothea Langeand the Censored Images of Japanese AmericanI n t e r n m e n t(http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall06/006073.htm) (Norton, 2006), edited by LindaGordon and Gary Y. Okihiro. A selection ofLange’s images, and the captions she wrote toaccompany them, are also displayed below.

Lange’s photographic critique is especiallyimpressive given the political mood of hertime—early 1942, just after Imperial Japanbombed Pearl Harbor, destroying a substantialportion of the American Pacific fleet. Americananger was especially strong because most didnot know how deliberately President Roosevelt,eager to help the British, had provoked theJapanese. But this anger was soon organizedfrom above to focus not only on the treacherousJapanese attack, ignoring the historical contextof U.S.-Japan conflict in Asia, and the nature ofJapanese colonialism, but on the Japanese as arace. Anti-Japanese racism was already welldeveloped on the west coast, and after theattack it was ratcheted up by politicians andthe press; after rumors surfaced of plans tointern Japanese Americans, big agribusinessinterests joined in the barrage of defamation,probably because they thought (correctly) thatthey could buy Japanese farms at discountedprices. Now the pejorative verbal and visualrhetoric about Japanese Americans wasintensified and expanded to include completelyuncorroborated allegations of disloyalty andtreason.

Hysterical waves of fear of further Japaneseattacks on the west coast of the U.S. crested ona century of racism against East Asians.Rumors of spies, sabotage, and attackscirculated widely. A few authenticatedJapanese attacks—for example, in February1942 submarines shelled a Santa Barbara oilrefinery; in June a submarine shelled theOregon coast; in September a submarine

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launched incendiary bombs near Brookings,Oregon—escalated the fear-driven hysteria,although no one was hurt, damage wasminimal, and the Japanese Americancommuni ty was not impl icated . Butsignificantly, the order calling for theinternment preceded these attacks. Militaryleaders especially ratcheted up the anti-Japanese fever. General John DeWitt, head ofthe U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command,opined that “the Japanese race is an enemyrace and while many second and thirdgeneration Japanese born on American soil,possessed of American citizenship, havebecome ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains areundiluted …. The very fact that no sabotage hastaken place to date is a disturbing andconfirming indication that such action will betaken …” That kind of hysterical illogic wentlargely unchallenged. As the Los Angeles Timesjustified the policy, “A viper is nonetheless aviper wherever the egg is hatched …”

In this situation, as the writer CareyMcWilliams remarked, you could count on yourfingers the number of “whites” who spokepublicly against sending Japanese Americans tointernment camps. Liberals and leftists, eventhose who explicitly opposed racism, remainedsilent because they swallowed the claim thatthis was a necessary measure to defeat theNazi-Japanese-Italian alliance—a claim made bytheir beloved President Roosevelt. TheCommunist Party was then willing to acceptany policy that purported to aid the Sovietresistance to the Nazi invasion. Even the liberalDr. Seuss contributed a racist anti-Japanesecartoon.

In February 1942 FDR ordered the internmentof the Japanese Americans, regardless of theircitizenship, and the War Relocation Authority(WRA) was established on March 18 toorganize their removal. These prisoners werenever even charged with a crime, let aloneconvicted. Two-thirds of them were U.S.

citizens, born in the U.S.—the remainder couldnot have become citizens because at that timepeople of Asian origin were prohibited fromnaturalization. The WRA was then headed byMilton Eisenhower (brother of Dwight), whohad previously worked for the Department ofAgriculture; he might well have beenacquainted with Paul Taylor (Lange’s husband),and Lange’s reputation as a documentaryphotographer for the Farm Securi tyAdministration had probably reached him.Equally important, no doubt, Lange lived in SanFrancisco, a major center of the JapaneseAmerican population. Still, her hiring wasironic. No doubt she had received anenthusiastic recommendation because her workhad so perfectly advanced the earlier agency’sagenda of documenting rural poverty. The WRAprobably expected the same compliance nowbut did not get it.

Another question arises: Why did the WRAwant photographic documentation of theinternment? Paul Taylor thought that making aphotographic documentary record was by thenwas simply “the thing to do” in government.Another factor: “government” was by no meansof one mind—if the Army’s Western Command,which ran the evacuation and the camps, hadbeen in charge, there might not have been anyphotographs. A photographic record couldprotect against fa lse a l legat ions o fmistreatment and violations of internationallaw, but it carried the risk, of course, ofdocumenting actual mistreatment. (A measureof how important it seemed to prevent such acalamity was that the internees were forbiddento have cameras.)

Lange was already opposed to the internmentwhen offered the job documenting it. She hadseveral Japanese American acquaintances,mainly through Taylor, a maverick progressiveeconomics professor at U.C. Berkeley whomentored several Japanese American graduatestudents. Taylor was one of the very small

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group of Anglos who protested Executive Order9066 ordering the evacuation. Both Lange andTaylor had been active in the struggles ofmigrant farmworkers, who were primarilyMexican, and this engagement had made themacutely aware of racism west-coast style.

Nevertheless, what Lange saw was worse thanshe had expec ted . Every s tage sheobserved—the peremptory directives toJapanese Americans to “report ,” theregistration, the evacuation, the temporaryassembly centers and the long-term internmentcamps—deepened her outrage. This in turnincreased her determination to finish the joband capture the actual conditions, and doing sorequired withstanding considerable adversity.She worked nonstop 16-hour days for half ayear, driving north, south and east many milesthrough California’s agricultural valleys wheremost Japanese Americans lived. She traveled onroads that were far from superhighways in carsnot air-conditioned despite the scorching heatthat prevai led toward the end of herundertaking. She did this as a disabled womanalready beginning to feel the pain of bleedingulcers and the muscular weakness we nowknow as post-polio syndrome. She patientlyfaced down continual harassment from armyofficers and guards who threw at her anyregulation or security claim they could think ofto prevent, slow, or censor her work. She wasaway from home for most of 5 months,worrying constantly about her older son, whoat age 17 was rebelling to the extent of beingcalled a juvenile delinquent. She undertook tophotograph something she considered odious inorder to create this record. She steeled herselfto witness suffering. She compromised some ofher most tenaciously held photographic andaesthetic values in order to record everythingshe could.

Not least among her dif f icult ies, shemaintained a facade of neutrality in herdealings with army brass so that they wouldn’t

fire her. This was a close call. Lange developeda particularly adversarial relation with MajorBeasley (referred to by some as Bozo Beasley),who tried to catch her in various infractions.Once she gave a photograph to Caleb Foote, aleader in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, whoused it as the cover of a pamphlet denouncingthe internment. Beasley thought he had her.But luckily for Lange, a congressionalinvestigating committee had published thepicture, thus putting it into the public domain.Another time Beasley thought he had caughther out in holding back a negative but when hecalled her in and demanded that she producethe missing negative, she showed him that itwas filed just where it ought to have been.

I believe that she imagined her photographsproducing a narrative, because by this time shehad become convinced that picturescommunicated best when telling a story. Indo ing th i s she went f a r beyond herassignment—making, for example, scores ofimages of the lives and contributions ofJapanese Americans before the ExecutiveOrder. So in designing this book, Gary Okihiroand I arranged the photographs not in theorder she took them—because the internmentprocess was in different stages in differentparts of California—but in the order I believeshe would have wanted: tracing the experienceof the Japanese Americans from life prior to theevacuation order through the relocation andthe internment experience.

The before-evacuation photographs emphasizedthe respectability and American-ness of theJapanese Americans and the ironies of theirinternment.

(Please scroll down; Lange’s photos are large toshow detail. Captions for all numbered photosare as recorded in the National Archives.)

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536053: San Francisco, California. Flag ofallegiance pledge at Raphael Weill PublicSchool, Geary and Buchanan Streets. Childrenin families of Japanese ancestry wereevacuated with their parents and will behoused for the duration in War RelocationAuthority centers where facilities will beprovided for them to continue their education.

536474: Florin, Sacramento County, California.A soldier and his mother in a strawberry field.The soldier, age 23, volunteered July 10, 1941,and is stationed at Camp Leonard Wood,Missouri. He was furloughed to help his motherand family prepare for their evacuation. He isthe youngest of six years children, two of themvolunteers in United States Army. The mother,

age 53, came from Japan 37 years ago. Herhusband died 21 years ago, leaving her to raisesix children. She worked in a strawbery basketfactory until last year when her her childrenleased three acres of strawberries “so shewouldn’t have to work for somebody else”. Thefamily is Buddhist. This is her youngest son.Her second son is in the army stationed at FortBliss. 453 families are to be evacuated fromthis area.

537475: Mountain View, California. Scene atSanta Clara home of the Shibuya family whoraised select chrysanthemums for easternmarkets. Madoka Shibuya (right), 25, was astudent at Stanford Medical School when thispicture was taken on April 18, 1942. Evacueesof Japanese ancestry will be housed in WarRelocation Authority centers for the duration.

As the round-up proceeded, the photographsshow people ripped from their lives on shortnotice, forced to sell property at great losses,to give up homes and furnishings, leave jobsand schools; lined up, registered, tagged likepackages; waiting, waiting, often guarded byarmed soldiers; allowed to bring only what theycould carry. Lange frequently used herunequaled mastery as a portrait photographer.

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537773: Byron, California. Field laborers ofJapanese ancestry from a large delta ranchhave assembled at Wartime Civil ControlAdministration station to receive instructionsfor evacuation which is to be effective in threedays under Civilian Exclusion Order Number24. They are arguing together about whether ornot they should return to the ranch to work forthe remaining five days or whether they shallspend that time on their personal affairs.

537745: 2031 Bush Street, San Francisco,California. Friends and neighbors congregateto bid farewell, though not for long, to theirfriends who are enroute to the TanforanAssembly center. They, themselves will be

evacuated within three days.

It is in the close-ups that we sense that thegreatest injury was often the humiliation.

537566: Centerville, California. A grandfatherawaits evacuation bus. Evacuees of Japaneseancestry will be housed in War RelocationAuthority centers for the duration.

The temporary assembly centers weredegrading beyond imagining. At the Tanforanassembly center in San Bruno, a formerracetrack, the internees lived in former horsestables.

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537930: San Bruno, California. Near view ofhorse-stall, left from the days when what is nowTanforan Assembly center, was the famousTanforan Race Track. Most of these stalls havebeen converted into family living quarters forJapanese.

They are surrounded by prison regulations: nocameras, no books or magazines in Japanese,meals in large mess halls with food often ladledout from garbage cans, collective toilets, wholefamilies sleeping in one “room” barelypartitioned off from adjoining families, singlessleeping in huge wards with long rows of cots.

537924: San Bruno, California. “Supper time”Meal times are the big events of the day atassembly centers. This is a line-up of evacueeswaiting for the “B” shift at 5:45 pm. They carrywith them their own dishes and cutlery in bagsto protect them from the dust . They,themselves, individually wash their own dishesafter each meal because dish washing facilitiesin the mess halls proved inadequate. Most ofthe residents prefer this second shift becausesometimes they get second helpings, but theshifts are rotated each week. There areeighteen mess halls that together accommodate8,000 persons for three meals a day. All food isprepared and served by evacuees. The posterseen in the background advertises thecandidacy of Mr. Suzuki for this precinct.

We realize now that she has forged a theme,both visual and emotional, that winds throughher photographs: waiting in line. The interneesline up for their preliminary registration, theywait in chairs, they stand waiting before tablesat which officials ask questions, fill out forms,give out instructions. Then they wait for busesor trains to carry them away. They wait in line

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for meals, for bathrooms, for laundry sinks.

537941: San Bruno, California. Many evacueessuffer from lack of their accustomed activity.The attitude of the man shown in thisphotograph is typical of the residents inassembly centers, and because there is notmuch to do and not enough work available,they mill around, they visit, they stroll and theylinger to while away the hours.

They suffer acutely from idleness, having beendeprived of work, school , avocation,community—and freedom.

Manzanar was the only long-term internmentcamp Lange was able to visit. The snow-covered Sierras looking down from the east didnothing to cool the 100-degree-plus heat, andthere were neither trees nor hills to break thefierce winds, whether icy or hot. Lange wasawed by the hostile environment: “meanestdust storms ... and not a blade of grass. And thesprings are so cruel; when those people arrivedthere they couldn’t keep the tarpaper on theshacks.” Unlike the other camps, Manzanarneeded no high barbed fence or guards—aswith Alcatraz, geography formed the prisonwalls.

539961: Original caption: Manzanar, California.Dust storm at this War Relocation Authoritycenter where evacuees of Japanese ancestryare spending the duration.

Here they settle in and recreate a life.

538152: Manzanar Relocation Center,Manzanar, California. William Katsuki, formerprofessional landscape gardener for largeestates in Southern California, demonstrateshis skill and ingenuity in creating frommaterials close at hand, a desert gardenalongside his home in the barracks at this WarRelocation Authority center.

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537991: Manzanar Relocation Center,Manzanar, California.Grandfather of Japanese ancestry teaching hislittle grandsonto walk at this War Relocation Authority centerfor evacuees.

537962: Manzanar Relocation Center,Manzanar, California. An elementary schoolwith voluntary attendance has been establishedwith volunteer evacueeteachers, most of whom are college graduates.No school equipment is as yetobtainable and available tables and benchesare used. However, classes areoften held in the shade of the barrack buildingat this War Relocation Authoritycenter.

I came to these photographs in the process ofwriting a biography of Dorothea Lange, inwhich I will be examining the visual culture ofthe depress ion and “New Deal ,” therepresentation of poverty, race, and classconflict. These photographs, however, couldnot await the completion of the biography.Their relevance to internment-without-chargestoday seemed to me to require bringing them topublic attention.

Dorothea Lange challenged the political culturethat categorized people of Japanese ancestry as

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disloyal, perfidious, potentially traitorous, thatstripped them of their citizenship and madethem unAmerican. She wanted to stop theinternment, and although she could not do that,she surely hoped that it would not be repeated.She was as eager to defeat the Axis powers asany other supporter of democracy, and workedon other photographic projects to honor thosewho contributed to the war effort—for example,portraits of defense industry workers. She toothought World War II was a “good war,”honorable and necessary. If her photographs ofa major American act of injustice had nuancedthis verdict just a bit, that fact would hardlyhave undermined the national commitment.And the added nuance might well havecontributed to developing among Americans acapacity for more complex, critical thinkingabout ensuing U.S. race and foreign policy.

Photograph of Lange herself, photographingthe internment

Linda Gordon is a professor of history at NewYork University and the author of the BancroftPrize-winning The Great Arizona OrphanA b d u c t i o n(http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/GORGRE.html) and other books dealing with the historyof controversial social policies, such as birthcontrol and protection against family violence.Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro are the editors ofthe recently published Impounded: DorotheaLange and the Censored Images of JapaneseA m e r i c a n I n t e r n m e n t(http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall06/006073.htm). This article was written for JapanFocus and posted on November 2, 2006.

Linda Gordon is interviewed and profiled atH i s t o r y N e w s N e t w o r k(http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/31760.html)

For other important articles on JapaneseAmerican internment:

* S e e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/1948) A.Wallace Tashima, "From the Internment ofJapanese Americans to Guantanamo: Justice ina time of trial."

* S e e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2234)Jean Miyake Downey, "Satsuki Ina's From a SilkCocoon, Japanese-American IncarcerationResistance Narratives, and the Post 9/11 Era."

* S e e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/1970)Greg Robinson, "The McCloy Memo: A NewLook at Japanese American Internment."

* S e e(http://japanfocus.org/products/details/1943)Mark Selden, "Remembering 'The Good War': TheAtomic Bombing and the Internment ofJapanese-Americans in U.S. History Textbooks."