Art and the Creation of a Resilient Japanese American Spirit
KCET Nancy Matsumoto KCET Nancy Matsumoto

Art and the Creation of a Resilient Japanese American Spirit

During the World War II incarceration of west coast Japanese Americans, countless artists found their lives shattered, shunted behind barbed wire. Some of them went on to achieve fame. As a group, they exerted an outsized influence on American art and design, yet rarely spoke of their incarceration experience. 

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Documenting Manzanar: Exploring the World War II prison camp through the images of Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake
DiscoverNikkei.org Nancy Matsumoto DiscoverNikkei.org Nancy Matsumoto

Documenting Manzanar: Exploring the World War II prison camp through the images of Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake

The first of an 18-part essay series on the images of three photographers who documented the World War II U.S. government prison camp Manzanar: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and Toyo Miyatake. Like Miyatake, my father and his entire family were imprisoned at Manzanar during the war.

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