warrelocationauthority

Thanks so much for sharing this photo. Our treatment of Japanese-Americans at this point in time was shameful. Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it.

I am really bothered by the the heading, "war emergency evacuation," as if Japanese Americans were rounded up and shipped off to the camps for their "own good." It shows that the U.S. government can say or do anything and justify it as a "war emergency."

They're preserving the titles of the photos as they were titled when they were taken. It's the Library of Congress historically documenting (and sharing with us) pieces of history. While that time period, and the subject matter is certainly sad and distasteful, I think it would be terrible if the LOC cleaned up the titles and other information to appeal to our modern sensibilities. It's much more important to get an accurate representation of history, imho. But I certainly understand where you're coming from- it was a terrible situation for the government to even conceive of internment camps, let alone put them into practice.

I agree with Jade. I appreciate the photo more because it has the original caption.

I agree with JadeEJF too. Doesn't change the fact that this is a shameful event in our history. -- Seen on your photo stream. (?)

From Matt O'Brien, "Photos of Dark Historical Event Emerge," Oakland Tribune (16 November 2006), online here:
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20061116/ai_n168...

"I don't even remember the picture being taken," said Satsuki Ward, who was barely 10 years old when she and her family members were uprooted from their East Bay home in May 1942. "It was utter chaos."

Ward, now a 76-year-old Fairfield resident, found out about Lange and her photographs of Japanese-American internment much later. The portrait of the Mochida family wearing identification tags around their necks made the pages of Newsweek magazine and other outlets, and helped expose a dark moment in American history.
....
Miyuki Hirano of Sparks, Nev., another one of the surviving Mochida siblings, remembers seeing her face on that book's cover.

But while they occasionally see reminders of their youth in print, it took many years for Mochida family members to be able to talk frankly about what happened to them, said Kayoko Ikuma, 69, of San Mateo, who was 4 when Lange took her photo.

Ikuma said witnessing the treatment of America's Muslim population has made her try to share her experience more.

Their parents avoided discussing the internment after the war. Their father, who had owned a successful flower-growing business in unincorporated Alameda County, returned from the camps unhappy, spent the rest of his life in domestic labor and took to drinking.

The Lange photographs, and the Mochida children's more vivid memories of years spent in the Utah camp, is all they have left from that time.

Pennylrichardsca, thanks for letting us know about this fascinating article about the Mochida family. This is definitely one of those haunting photographs of children where you wonder whatever happened to them. It's a sad story.

You might be interested in checking out nearly 4,000 photographs taken by the War Relocation Authority of the Japanese American Internment during World War II that are available in our online catalog. We have a webpage that allows you to click on links for search topics within this group of photos:
www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/japanese-americans/

We hope to get those photos on Flickr at some point, too.

Thank you for sharing these incredibly powerful photographs.

Very moving...

You are welcome! This has been one of the more talked about photographs we've shared on the U.S. National Archives photostream. We recommend that you investigate earlier posts for the image which lead to more information about the young girls in the photograph.

Jerry (U.S. National Archives)

this whole set of photos made me nostalgic for how america used to be, and how the country banded together during WWII and then blam! knocked me down a peg.

love the hair.

Why does it look like they have white make-up on?

Really great that they were still optimistic, considering what they were going through. -- Seen in your 1930s-40s in Color set. (?)

personally madkt I´m glad the US is not the way it used to be placing it´s citizens in made up prisons and calling them camps under the pretext of war. I found yr comment extremely disturbing and really out of place