This important work of nonfiction features powerful images of the
Japanese American incarceration captured by three
photographers--Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams--along
with firsthand accounts of this grave moment in history.
Three months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, US President
Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the incarceration of all Japanese and
Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States.
Families, teachers, farm workers--all were ordered to leave behind their
homes, their businesses, and everything they owned. Japanese and
Japanese Americans were forced to live under hostile conditions in
incarceration camps, their futures uncertain.
Three photographers set out to document life at Manzanar, an
incarceration camp in the California desert:
Dorothea Lange was a photographer from San Francisco best known for
her haunting Depression-era images. Dorothea was hired by the US
government to record the conditions of the camps. Deeply critical of the
policy, she wanted her photos to shed light on the harsh reality of
incarceration.
Toyo Miyatake was a Japanese-born, Los Angeles-based photographer
who lent his artistic eye to portraying dancers, athletes, and events in
the Japanese community. Imprisoned at Manzanar, he devised a way to
smuggle in photographic equipment, determined to show what was really
going on inside the barbed-wire confines of the camp.
Ansel Adams was an acclaimed landscape photographer and
environmentalist. Hired by the director of Manzanar, Ansel hoped his
carefully curated pictures would demonstrate to the rest of the United
States the resilience of those in the camps.
In Seen and Unseen, Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki weave
together these photographers' images, firsthand accounts, and stunning
original art to examine the history, heartbreak, and injustice of the
Japanese American incarceration.
AWARENESS OF AMERICAN HISTORY: This impactful book engages with an
underrepresented topic in American history, and highlights important and
timely themes like primary sources, censorship, and visual literacy.
SUBSTANTIAL BACKMATTER: Featuring eighteen pages of backmatter,
including an Author's and Illustrator's Note, footnotes, photo credits,
biographies of each photographer, and more.
Perfect for:
Parents
Educators
Librarians
