Photographer Dorothea Lange is best known for her candid shots of the 1930s Great Depression and showing the heart-breaking struggle that many endured during that time. One of her most famous pieces from the period is the iconic Migrant Mother, in which a destitute pea picker is embraced by two of her seven children. In 1942, she was hired by the US government to similarly document the “evacuation” and “relocation” of Japanese-Americans. While opposed to the idea, she was eager to take the commission because she thought “a true record of the evacuation would be valuable in the future.”
Military commanders reviewed Lange’s work afterwards and were not pleased once they realized her contrarian view of the internment camps. They then seized the photos for the duration of World War II and deposited them in the National Archives, unavailable for view. In 2006, the censored pictures were finally released.
Lange’s heartbreaking photos show the different phases of the internment. She snapped portraits of Japanese-Americans as they wait to register before the “evacuation,” are bused to the camps, and then forced to establish a new routine in the meager and desolate parts of California. The effects—and despair—felt by those confined is palpable through these images.
The book Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment features quotes from those imprisoned. “We went to the stable, Tanforan Assembly Center. It was terrible,” one Osuke Takizawa recalled. “The Government moved the horses out and put us in. The stable stunk awfully. I felt miserable but I couldn’t do anything. It was like a prison, guards on duty all the time, and there was barbed wire all around us. We really worried about our future. I just gave up.”
In addition to her photographs, Lange meticulously captioned her photos, offering context to this troubling time. See a selection of her images (with the captions) below. Tim Chambers of Anchor Editions has also made a limited number of Lange’s prints available for sale.
(Via My Modern Met)
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