# Photos: 3 Very Different Views Of Japanese Internment



## limr

Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Toyo Miyataki

Photos: 3 Very Different Views Of Japanese Internment


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## limr

I posted this after midnight, so a bump for the morning folks.


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## The_Traveler

An interesting comparison amongst the three; Adams was perfect but bloodless, while Dorothea Lange and and Toyo Miyataki actually had some humanity to their images.


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## JustJazzie

Apparently public education l failed me yet again. I had to look up "Japanise Internment" I remember studying Pearl Harbor, but we never touched on this aspect as far as I remember.

A very interesting, and enlightening article for me. Thank you for sharing.


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## wyogirl

JustJazzie said:


> Apparently public education l failed me yet again. I had to look up "Japanise Internment" I remember studying Pearl Harbor, but we never touched on this aspect as far as I remember.
> 
> A very interesting, and enlightening article for me. Thank you for sharing.


I knew about it before now-- but yes, public education failed me as well. We NEVER learned about this in school.


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## dxqcanada

This is something that is not taught as History of North America.

All Japanese along the west coast of Canada and USA were rounded up ... including my parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents were interned here in Canada.
Here in Canada, the government took possession of whatever they could not carry (and sold it off to the public).
The Japanese were not the only ones they did this to, during WWII.


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## dxqcanada

... and most were born in Canada.

Internment Camps Photos | SEDAI: The Japanese Canadian Legacy Project


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## pixmedic

Am I  the only one that read that as "3 very different views of Japanese internet"?

Spoiler alert....there is NO anime, manga, or yaoi in the linked page. 

Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk


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## dxqcanada

Hmm


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## cgw

Thanks for this.  "The Greatest Generation" avoids most things that complicate or contradict its version of  history.


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## Peeb

cgw said:


> Thanks for this.  "The Greatest Generation" avoids most things that complicate or contradict its version of  history.


Oh my, this is quite a generalization as to an entire generation of people, isn't it?

Governments in general prefer to control the story line of history, as has been the case for thousands of years.  Something about this particular generation got your goat?


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## jcdeboever

A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day. 

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## runnah

jcdeboever said:


> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk



Depending on how this fall goes we could be facing another similar circumstance with a different group of people.


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## jcdeboever

runnah said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> 
> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Depending on how this fall goes we could be facing another similar circumstance with a different group of people.
Click to expand...

Yes sir

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## runnah

JustJazzie said:


> Apparently public education l failed me yet again. I had to look up "Japanise Internment" I remember studying Pearl Harbor, but we never touched on this aspect as far as I remember.



That shocks and saddens me greatly. Folks seems intent on presenting this idea that the US is this perfect little angel that has never done anything wrong. We as a country have done some serious ****ed up things during our time.


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## alv

but we are still able to talk and react or change the problem so far ,al


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## Peeb

jcdeboever said:


> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk


Under the banner of 'National security' the USSC said it was 'legal', but the Justice Department conceded that it was in error (albeit, several decades later):
Korematsu v. United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Peeb

Another interesting post-mortem of the Supreme Court's ruling is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/us/time-for-supreme-court-to-overrule-korematsu-verdict.html


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## tirediron

jcdeboever said:


> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk


 Don't forget, you're looking at this with 21st century attitudes.  The culture of the early 1940s was very, very different, and while it's fine to act outraged and offended by events in the past, you can be sure our great-great-great grand-children will find fault with things we've done and the manner in which we've acted.  This was 'right' at the time, in the same way that slavery was once 'right' and the earth was once flat.  I am not by any stretch condoning the internment of people of foreign ancestory (Canada did it too), codemning those responsible without being able to see the world that they saw is equally wrong.


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## jcdeboever

tirediron said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> 
> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> Don't forget, you're looking at this with 21st century attitudes.  The culture of the early 1940s was very, very different, and while it's fine to act outraged and offended by events in the past, you can be sure our great-great-great grand-children will find fault with things we've done and the manner in which we've acted.  This was 'right' at the time, in the same way that slavery was once 'right' and the earth was once flat.  I am not by any stretch condoning the internment of people of foreign ancestory (Canada did it too), codemning those responsible without being able to see the world that they saw is equally wrong.
Click to expand...

I agree 

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## Gary A.

tirediron said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> 
> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> Don't forget, you're looking at this with 21st century attitudes.  The culture of the early 1940s was very, very different, and while it's fine to act outraged and offended by events in the past, you can be sure our great-great-great grand-children will find fault with things we've done and the manner in which we've acted.  This was 'right' at the time, in the same way that slavery was once 'right' and the earth was once flat.  I am not by any stretch condoning the internment of people of foreign ancestory (Canada did it too), codemning those responsible without being able to see the world that they saw is equally wrong.
Click to expand...


The most disturbing thought to me regarding the camps ... is why were the Japanese interned and not Germans and Italians who also declared war on the USA? Even at that time, in the '40's, people questioned the obvious racism of this action.  My father, who lived on the West Coast, who was a Marine in the first wave at Guadalcanal, who decades later was totally uncomfortable at even visiting Japan ... felt the camps were totally wrong and ... well ... anti-American. I think he wasn't alone with his sentiments. 

The camps were wrong then and they would be wrong now.


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## Gary A.

This brings back memories. In college a group of us contributed/wrote an oral history of the camp at Manzanar. The professor that ran the college's photo lab was interned at Manzanar. I remember him speaking of handmaking cameras and finding ways to develop and print.


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## Gary A.

dxqcanada said:


> This is something that is not taught as History of North America.
> 
> All Japanese along the west coast of Canada and USA were rounded up ... including my parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents were interned here in Canada.
> Here in Canada, the government took possession of whatever they could not carry (and sold it off to the public).
> The Japanese were not the only ones they did this to, during WWII.


There was a greed factor here which fed the camps, Americans of Japanese descent receive ten cents to the dollar for their homes and farms.

If that happened to me ... I would be hard pressed to not to hate the country that wrongfully imprisoned me and others like me. A humble salute to the 442.


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## Gary A.

BTW- We were taught of the camps in my public schooling. Sorta hard to avoid as it all happened in our neighborhoods.


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## jcdeboever

There was a guy on Star Trek that was in one of those camps, Zulu?. Anyway,  I heard him talk about it on XM radio and he was real vocal about the whole thing and offered an interesting perspective in that he was a child while in there.


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## limr

Gary A. said:


> There was a greed factor here which fed the camps, Americans of Japanese descent receive ten cents to the dollar for their homes and farms.
> 
> If that happened to me ... I would be hard pressed to not to hate the country that wrongfully imprisoned me and others like me. A humble salute to the 442.



I agree - it would be easy for me to feel bitter and angry if this had happened to me.

And yet, not everyone did feel that way. Today happens to be the Remembrance Day for the Japanese Internment, something I hadn't known when I posted the original link. I looked for new stories about it and the only major news outlet that published anything was NBC: Editorial: Day of Remembrance Is a Reminder to Continue to Fight Injustice

It was interesting enough, but it was another article that really struck me. It's about Norman Mineta, a Japanese-American who had been interned, and who went on to a life of public service.
Former Cabinet member talks internment, public service

"Widely recognized for his work on civil rights, Mineta was the primary force behind the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, or the Japanese reparations bill, which was the first time the United States formally apologized for its treatment of its Japanese citizens and immigrants during the war.
...
Mineta also played a crucial role in responding to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. As secretary of transportation, it was Mineta’s call to ground all 4,546 airplanes flying over the U.S. at the time. He spoke about Bush’s emphasis on avoiding racial and ethnic profiling in the aftermath of the attacks. Referring to a cabinet meeting on Sept. 13 where concerns over the civil liberties of Muslim and Middle-Eastern Americans rose to the forefront of the discussion, Mineta recalled the president saying, 'We don’t want to have happen today what happened to Norm [Mineta] in 1942.'"

While it's good to hear that the sentiment was against profiling, unfortunately the reality on the ground was something different. I understand that the 40s were a different time, and even though people might have felt uncomfortable about the internment, it may have been harder to speak out about it. But it's now 2016 and we DO know it's wrong, and we CAN speak out more easily, and so we should, in order to help prevent a repeat performance.



jcdeboever said:


> There was a guy on Star Trek that was in one of those camps, Zulu?. Anyway,  I heard him talk about it on XM radio and he was real vocal about the whole thing and offered an interesting perspective in that he was a child while in there.



That was George Takei, who played Sulu in the original series.


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## cgw

tirediron said:


> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> 
> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> Don't forget, you're looking at this with 21st century attitudes.  The culture of the early 1940s was very, very different, and while it's fine to act outraged and offended by events in the past, you can be sure our great-great-great grand-children will find fault with things we've done and the manner in which we've acted.  This was 'right' at the time, in the same way that slavery was once 'right' and the earth was once flat.  I am not by any stretch condoning the internment of people of foreign ancestory (Canada did it too), codemning those responsible without being able to see the world that they saw is equally wrong.
Click to expand...


Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.


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## pixmedic

cgw said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> jcdeboever said:
> 
> 
> 
> A very disturbing and embarrassing violation of civil liberties. Hard for me to relate to  the blatant, racist thought process. Unfortunately, under the surface,  I don't see much has changed to this day.
> 
> Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
> 
> 
> 
> Don't forget, you're looking at this with 21st century attitudes.  The culture of the early 1940s was very, very different, and while it's fine to act outraged and offended by events in the past, you can be sure our great-great-great grand-children will find fault with things we've done and the manner in which we've acted.  This was 'right' at the time, in the same way that slavery was once 'right' and the earth was once flat.  I am not by any stretch condoning the internment of people of foreign ancestory (Canada did it too), codemning those responsible without being able to see the world that they saw is equally wrong.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.
Click to expand...


No, what it is, is the difference between how different eras view things.
Do you really think future generations won't look at our behavior now and be appalled by some things? 
Noone made any excuses for what was done, but it's foolish and unrealistic to look at past events with modern rose colored glasses thinking you have the high moral ground.  People always think they have the moral high ground when looking at past events. 

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## tirediron

cgw said:


> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.


 Sorry, could you give me that in English?


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## gsgary

dxqcanada said:


> This is something that is not taught as History of North America.
> 
> All Japanese along the west coast of Canada and USA were rounded up ... including my parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents were interned here in Canada.
> Here in Canada, the government took possession of whatever they could not carry (and sold it off to the public).
> The Japanese were not the only ones they did this to, during WWII.


In the UK Italians were intervened on The Isle of Man

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## cgw

tirediron said:


> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, could you give me that in English?
Click to expand...


Try a dictionary...


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## dxqcanada

jcdeboever said:


> There was a guy on Star Trek that was in one of those camps, Zulu?. Anyway,  I heard him talk about it on XM radio and he was real vocal about the whole thing and offered an interesting perspective in that he was a child while in there.



Sulu (Star Trek) - George Takei


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## dxqcanada

gsgary said:


> In the UK Italians were intervened on The Isle of Man
> 
> Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk



Ukrainians were interned here in Canada.


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## tirediron

cgw said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, could you give me that in English?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Try a dictionary...
Click to expand...

I understand the words; I am unclear on the meaning you're trying to impart.


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## Designer

tirediron said:


> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, could you give me that in English?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Try a dictionary...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I understand the words; I am unclear on the meaning you're trying to impart.
Click to expand...

He is commenting on events of 70 years ago using current sentiment.  Too bad he wasn't born 90 years ago.


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## tirediron

Designer said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cgw said:
> 
> 
> 
> Embarrassing relativistic twaddle. Totally lame apologia for a brutal example of racial profiling.
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, could you give me that in English?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Try a dictionary...
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I understand the words; I am unclear on the meaning you're trying to impart.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> He is commenting on events of 70 years ago using current sentiment.  Too bad he wasn't born 90 years ago.
Click to expand...

Kind of figured that.


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## Tim Tucker

I've only just come across this thread, but I think it fair to point out that Dorothea Lange visited the camp just after it was created and Ansel Adams visited it a couple of years later. A lot of the differences in conditions are due to improvements the Japanese themselves made and cannot really be fully attributed to the photographers' different styles. Also Ansel Adams made it clear what he thought of the camps, and his reverence for Dorothea's images, in his book "Examples".


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## Peeb

What did he think?


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## table1349

Being old enough to have friends with family that survived German "Camps" and friends that had family in the American camps my thoughts are simply this...can you tell which one is in Europe and which one is in the USA?












While the photographs may have some historical value they serve to show that at the least they were totally misguided and in one case the most criminally evil.  They were in both cases prisons for the undeserving who were left unprotected by the very societies that should have protected them.


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## decyjohn

This is my favourite.


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## dxqcanada

Yeah, this is an old thread ... but I just happen to be scanning some family photos ... and remembered this discussion.
Thought I would add some more personal input.

Lemon Creek internment camp in BC Canada - 1944

My great grandmother is in the middle, her daughters, their husbands, and their children ... one of which is my mother.
GGM is naturalized Canadian, her daughters were born in Canada. Their husbands came to Canada around 1920.
My great grandfather (who is not in this picture) came to Canada in 1899.


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## Gary A.

Thank you Dennis, this brings it home.


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## dxqcanada

Sadly, I have not yet asked anyone about this time of their lives ... so a lot of that knowledge is lost.


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## dxqcanada

shikata ga nai


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## Gary A.

dxqcanada said:


> shikata ga nai


It is ... what it is.


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