Q: How long have you known you wanted to be an author? Gary: How long I’ve known I wanted to be an author? Let’s see, maybe while I was in my twenties, probably about 25 years old. Q: And what do you admire most about Dorothea Lange’s photographs of Manzanar? G: Well there are a few things. The first is since photographs are forms of visual text, I have associated her photographs of Manzanar with my writings of Manzanar. And she didn’t only photograph the words of Manzanar, but the words of the people there. So those people gained a kind of substance through her photographs. Q: Thank you. And do you think the fact that Dorothea Lange was a woman may have played a role in the suppression of her photographs? G: Absolutely. There are a couple ways. She was very concerned for the families and the children and the women of the camp. And I also think she conveyed a sensibility, showing that affection for her subjects, something that as a woman, came to her easily. Q: And does it seem surprising to you that the government wanted her to take photos of the camp after her photographs of the Great Depression? G: Well, there are a couple things about that. One is that she had previously worked for the government, the Farm Security Administration, where she documented the effects of the Great Depression. So the government also contracted with her to photograph the forced confinement and relocation of the Japanese Americans, which would be another migration of sorts. Q: Did your view of the internment of the Japanese Americans change after writing, Impounded? G: No, I don’t think so, because I had written a so many books on the internment before writing Impounded. Impounded was a kind of summary of what I’d done previously. Q: Did you ever compare Dorothea Lange’s photographs to Ansel Adams’ photograph of Manzanar? G: I have. Q: So why do you think Ansel Adams’ photographs were accepted by the government and Dorothea Lange’s were suppressed? G: Well, there are two different reasons. One, Dorothea Lange was recruited by the government to photograph the camp. But Ansel Adams went as a private, interested citizen. And he was invited to Manzanar because of the director of that camp. The other reason is that Dorothea Lange went to document the event unvarnished, that is as she saw it, and she saw it as a tragic, disgraceful event of our democracy. She photographed a group of people racially profiled for no reason, and how they hadn’t committed any crime. So she depicted it as a great tragedy, and you can see that on the discouraged faces of people and her focus of families and groups, also. Ansel Adams went there with an intention to show that these Japanese Americans were truly American. They were just like any other ordinary American. And he thought by doing that, by depicting these people with humanity, they would appeal more to the public. So his photographs didn’t depict the kind of emotions that Dorothea Lange’s photographs have. -Telephone Interview with Gary Y. Okihiro.
Astonishing Moments from Interviews
"These were American citizens, and that's the sad thing. We put American citizens behind bars and behind barbed wire." - Michael Adams
"And he (Ansel Adams) wanted to do something and he felt like - what are we doing? We are fighting fascism in Asia and in Europe and yet we're practicing it on our own people. And he felt it was a great American tragedy." - Mary Alinder
"Dorothea Lange went to document the event unvarnished, that is as she saw it, and she saw it as a tragic, disgracefulevent of our democracy." - Gary Y. Okihiro
"I was told by my brothers already in the army to be sure to answer yes to both of the questions, as this is our country and we have to defend it. (If you answered no to each question, they would lock us in another prison)" - Maya Miyamoto on the "loyalty questionnaire" given to internees on arrival to internment camps.
"They don't go around saying 'Oh, poor me' or anything like that. We just make do with what we have to do. The Japanese word for it is "GAMAN," which means to endure, to put up with whatever you're dealt."- Kiyoko Uchida, former internee at Heart Mountain, Wyoming
"She (Dorothea Lange) photographed a group of people racially profiled for no reason, and how they hadn’t committed any crime. So she depicted it as a great tragedy, and you can see that on the discouraged faces of people and her focus of families and groups." - Gary Okihiro
"Upon arriving in Carmel all of our house, store, garage, etc. were gone. Nothing of ours farm belongings and equipment were no place. I didn’t know what happened to everything." - Maya Miyamoto
"Ansel Adams is taking photographs of Manzanar after the camps are already underway, a little bit later, and he is really trying to focus on creating, basically reversing, recent stereotypes of Japanese Americans and creating a more humanized vision of who Japanese Americans are which he hopes will help them as they start to relocate outside of camp and go back into sort of normal American society." - Jasmine Alinder
"She (Dorothea Lange) was a much sought-after premier portrait maker until one day she went out into the street and began photographing people there." - Dixie Dixon
"I think they (Internees) just put up with what they had and made best with what they could do." - Kiyoko Uchida, former internee at Heart Mountain, Wyoming