Customer Reviews

Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment

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Although the text is informative in telling the history of Japanese internment during World War II, the images speak for themselves, page after page in stark black and white, the young and innocent, the old and careworn, carrying rope-bound suitcases and cardboard boxes, standing in long lines, waiting to be processed by indifferent jailors, an entire race herded into the camps that will be home for the war years, disenfranchising them of investment in community and the pride of being Americans. As history has proven over and over, fear is a monster that cannot be contained once the public is infected, the vulnerable a source of suspicion, marked by the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes.

Whole families gather in these telling photographs, leaving treasured belongings behind, grandparents to infants, all swept up in an infamous display of mistrust in a country suddenly driven to panic by a surprise attack, demanding a quick response from their government. Lange has a particular talent for capturing the very human face of the internment camps, children with ID tags attached to their coats, chain link fences topped with barbed wire circling the arid landscape, family laundry hanging from a window, the barren rows of housing units assailed by constant dust storms, women working on camouflage nets for the War Department.

Famous for her Depression era photos of migrant farm workers, this series of photographs, while ordered by the US Government, were censored for the duration of the war. The most striking feature of the collection is the very American look of these people, standing proud while saluting the flag, teenagers trying to act cool in spite of their surroundings, family gatherings that are familiar Americana. It is also important to mention that, in spite of the extreme measures undertaken, "no Japanese-American was ever found guilty of espionage". Lange's work is enhanced by the two essays that precede the collection of photographs, Linda Gordon's biographical essay on Lange's life and work and Gary Okihiro's "An American Story", outlining Japanese immigration to America and the history of Japanese internment, with personal anecdotes by detainees. This is a moving portrait of a country's response to threat, reminding us to value the precious tenets of freedom. Luan Gaines/2006.

When I first opened Impounded, I was a bit irritated at the length of the two written pieces that preceeded the actual photographs or Dorthea Lange. After reading the pieces by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro I was much more aware of the depth of Lange's growing dislike of the idea of internment camps and just how valuable these photographs are to history. I confess, I had heard very little of these "relocations" during the war,barely aware that such a thing had happened. I had lived in Utah for over ten years before I knew one camp, Topaz, had been established in my own state. Page after page of Lange's clear eyed, unsentimental photos reveal just how stark and jarring these camps were. Photo after photo show American citizens lined up and submitting to the order to move. Faces show confusion, shame and sorrow. Other photos show the efforts made by camp inhabitants to bring horticulture, education and to instill a sense of community. Page of page of photos of fellow citizens being torn away from all they had built and worked for simply because they looked like the enemy. Page after page of Lange's clear-eyed documentation.
Many, if not most of these photographs have never been seen on any widespread basis. She was working as a photographer for a government agency and they could use these as they saw fit. They were simply put away and never saw any widespread distribution. It is a testament to the skill and inspiration of the photographer that we have this book of unsentimental and honest images of that shameful time in our nation's past. The only minus is the size of the photos. I woud have liked to have a larger photos to study.

These important photographs taking during WW2 in the Japanese internment camps scattered around the American west are almost unreadble. The are reproduced very small, and without the requisite skill to make deteriorated images look half decent on the printed page.
The text is informative, especially about Dorothea Lange's trials in gaining access to the camps in California.

I purchased the book based on previous photos by Dorothea Lange during the Japanese internment period in the United States. She is an excellent photographer, unfortunately the reproduction of her prints were fair in this book.

An injustice to Ms. Lange's photography. The photography of Ms. Lange is represented as the thesis of this book, but the photographs are so poorly reproduced that the point is lost. If you wish to learn a little about the internment of the Japanese-Americans during WWII it is adequate but as a retrospective of Ms. Lange's photography (which the publisher obviously is using as the marketing ploy), it is a failure.

Anyone who had relatives affected by Executive Order 9066 knows that photographic depiction of camp life was pretty much forbidden from 1942-1944. My family collection of that time consists of my Grandfather's watercolor paintings of Amache, a family photo surreptitiously taken by a Chinese visitor in 1943 and a 1945 softball game at Topaz.

I purchased the book hoping to see additional images of Amache and Topaz, my Father's and Mother's respective camps. While I really didn't expect to see them in any of Dorothea Lange's photos, I came to realize that the pictures, absent any geographic landmarks, could easily have been taken in any of the ten camps. Some of the shots appear to have been editorially 'stylized', but I have been told that film speeds and camera shutters of the time were not conducive to candid images. It is clear that I have grown accustomed to a digital age with high resolution and strobe lights. Regardless, I very much appreciate and respect the effort undertaken in finally publishing these censored photos.

The ultimate surprise came from a non-Dorothea Lange photo at the beginning of the book. It shows a crowd of Issei and Nisei in San Francisco enroute to the Santa Anita assembly center. The photo not only shows Dorothea Lange holding a large format reflex camera in the background, it also shows my Father, Grandfather and Uncle! But for a man's fedora and a woman's hat blocking them, my Grandmother and other Uncle would also be visible.

A cropped version of the picture was shown on the front page of the April 7, 1942 edition of the San Francisco News, so it can be deduced that the photo was taken no later than April 6, 1942.

I can only hope that other Japanese American families will be able to identify significant relatives following close examination of these now un-censored photos.

Dorothea Lange's photographs document an important American event that is still unknown to a large number of Americans. The fact that the government impounded the photographs speaks for itself.

Outstanding description and photographs documenting the terrible injustice done to American citizens and residents solely because of their Japanese ancestry throughout the Second World War. The indecencies suffered by these people can barely be described adequately, but this book attempts to further illustrate the horrors that can be inflicted on an ethnic group if racism is allowed to influence government policy, as it did in this country during that war.

As a teacher reading "Farewell To Manzanar," this book is invaluable describing the government attitude of the time. Yes it was wartime but, as Ronald Reagan said, "it was a mistake." These Lange photographs show the real hardships imposed on American citizens with no due process. They also show the courage and determination of these people. (Shikata ga nai)

The book itself is produced well with very good photo reproduction. It will be a personal favorite and a classroom resource for a long time.

The text is rather small, and Dorothea Lange's images are presented in sizes that are too small, and lacking the quality I'm sure the originals had. Her images deserve a LOT better than this. The publisher should be ashamed.