Seen and Unseen: what Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams's photographs reveal about the Japanese American incarceration Book Review

 

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Partridge, E. (2022). Seen and Unseen: what Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams's photographs reveal about the Japanese American incarceration. Chronicle Books. ISBN: 978-1-45216-510-3

2.  PLOT SUMMARY

This book captures the lives of Japanese Americans during their time in internment camps from 3 photographer’s points of view. 

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This informational novel falls under the category of History in the Dewey 900’s. After Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were forced from their West Coast homes and imprisoned in camps. The government first hired Dorthea Lange to take pictures to show Americans how well the Japanese were being treated in the camps. To her horror, life was nothing like what she was allowed to photograph. Next is a photographer by the name of Toyo Miyatake. He was a prisoner in Manzanar and had smuggled his camera lens in. With help from friends, he was given the supplies needed to make a camera and develop the prints. His pictures in the novel show what life was really like in the camps. Last is Ansel Adams, who is asked to come photograph by the director of the camp. Ansel stuck with portraits and left out large portions of what life was really like in the internment camps. The reader will sympathize with the prisoners because of the mistreatment of Japanese Americans who pledged their allegiance to our country. The conditions described are heartbreaking, but are a dark part of our history. 

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

• Booklist starred, 10/15/22

• Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books starred, 11/01/22

• Horn Book Magazine, 09/01/22

• Kirkus Reviews starred, 08/01/22

• New York Times, 11/13/22

• Publishers Weekly Annex starred, 10/24/22

• Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, 2023

• School Library Journal Xpress starred, 10/28/22

Booklist starred (October 15, 2022 (Vol. 119, No. 4))

Grades 6-9. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, he authorized the removal and imprisonment of over 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Three photographers—two white, one imprisoned and relying on contraband equipment—documented the forced removal and incarceration at Manzanar, one of 10 federal prison camps. The government hired Dorothea Lange, renowned for her 1930s Dust Bowl images, to photograph the “humane, orderly way” relocation orders were enforced; although “horrified,” Lange took the assignment “to show what the government was doing was unfair and undemocratic.” L.A. photographer Toyo Miyatake smuggled his camera lens into Manzanar and had a friend build him a camera body: “I had to record everything . . . This kind of thing should never happen again.” Manzanar’s director asked his friend Ansel Adams—who had not been against the incarceration—to show how “prisoners were hard-working, cheerful, and resilient.” Manzanar prisoner Taira Fukushima wisely noted, “Everything in a picture is not necessarily true.” Each of the photographers’ works are highlighted throughout, although more would have been appreciated. While author Partridge deftly exposes the injustices, illustrator Tamaki enhances the text with superbly resonating, gorgeously empathic illustrations. The back matter proves especially illuminating, including personal revelations that Lange was Partridge’s godmother and that fourth-generation Japanese-Canadian Tamaki’s grandparents were detained in Canadian prison camps.

• 5. CONNECTIONS

Loh-Hagan, V. (2023). Japanese American Incarceration. Cherry Lake Press. ISBN: 978-1-66890-930-0

Warren, A. (2019). Enemy child : the story of Norman Mineta, a boy imprisoned in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House. ISBN: 978-1-71378-557-6 

Activities:

Pick one of the 3 photographers from the book to research their works.  

Choose one of the relocation centers to research.