169. Eye Opener

There is a photograph of Ansel Adams' that I believe is perfect. It was taken by him when on assignment for the Farm Security Administration to document life at Manzanar - the Japanese Internment camps during World War II.  It is not of the camps, but of Mount Williamson,  the majestic back drop to the barren and harsh camps where the people of Japanese decent (and primarily American citizens) lived for many years after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

What I know of Manzanar I know through the FSA photographs of both Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange. Every time I drove home from Mammoth on the 395 I intended to stop by the Manzanar Museum. May be it held kernels of information about these photographers and their experience at Manzanar.  We stopped today.

The first thing I noticed was the oppressive heat - something that is hard to communicate in photographs. My head started to pound and my stomach did a few flips.  As we entered the museum Curtis and I split up and headed in different directions. The first document I read was Executive Order 9066 - the law was so straight forward and cold. Persons of Japanese decent, whether citizens or not, needed to report to an internment camp with little other than a few personal effects and bedding. Before the end of the one page document I became over whelmed by emotion. It was hard to reconcile the ideals we are taught to believe in as Americans when faced with the reality of our history. I tried to imagine receiving the order and what it would mean to my life, my liberty, and my happiness. Unable to earn a living, these victims were unable to pay their mortgages and most lost their homes and businesses.

Wandering around the museum I saw only a few images by Adams and Lange. Instead, many of the images were taken by Toyo Miyatake - some one I had never heard of. Miyatake was a professional photographer that owned a successful studio in Los Angeles prior to the executive order. He was forbidden by that order to bring any of his cameras with him. Not able to completely comply, he hid a lens inside his coat lining, eventually hand built a camera out of scrap wood in the style of a traditional wooden lunch box to prevent its discovery. During the time he was forced to live at Manzanar he made thousands of photographs on contraband film smuggled in by white friends.

I realized the reason I became so over whelmed by this museum was because of these photographs made by Miyatake. His images captured all aspects of the residents' life - good and bad. The images made by Lange and Adams were images made for the government - to enlist support for the centers. One of Lange's most famous photographs captured a prideful young Japanese-American saying the pledge of allegiance. Ansel Adams was asked not to photograph to guard towers sporting machines guns because it would communicate the wrong idea.

When the war ended the United Stated dismantled the camps as quickly as possible - all the internees had built and created. Hopefully we could all forgive and forget? Langes images (even though mostly positive) were hidden in the Library of Congress archives and not publicly exhibited until the mid 1970's. Ansel Adams published his image of Mount Williamson - one of his typical Sierra Nevada landscapes that has nothing to do with Manzanar. His other images of the camp at Manzanar also lived in the Library of Congress for years.

Today, I went searching for something totally different than what I found. What I found was painfully hard to accept. The museum is there so we don't repeat our mistakes. If you ever travel down the 395 please take the time to stop at Manzanar.