Ansel Adams: Richard Kobayashi, farmer with cabbages, Manzanar Relocation Center, California (1943); Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppprs-00453.

ANSEL ADAMS’S WAR PICTURES

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is world-renowned for his excellent landscape photography, and his perfect tonality. But not many are familiar with his photographs of the Japanese American internment during World War II.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, anti-Japanese sentiments in America were understandably strong. This, in turn, had a major effect on the lives of the members of the Japanese community in the United States. Within a few months, the government, fearing sabotage, issued a notice to all people of Japanese descent that they were to be evacuated from the Pacific Coast. This included not only first-generation Japanese, who had not been allowed to naturalize, but also their children, who were American by birth. In all, about two-thirds of the 110,000 people who were taken to relocation centers in remote areas of the US were American citizens.

Ansel Adams wanted to capture the resilience and good spirit of the Japanese Americans and to encourage Americans to accept them back into the community after the war. To this end, he published a book, Born Free and Equal. While this sounds commendable, he was a bit overzealous in stressing the positive. Many of Adams’s photographs show smiling faces, pretty gardens, beautiful mountains, and sports events. The man with his cabbages seems to have stepped right out of an advertisement.

In reality, conditions in the camps were far from ideal. When we compare his work to that of fellow photographers, it becomes clear what Adams doesn’t show: the armed guards, the barbed wire, and the primitive and squalid living conditions.

After their release from the camps, many Japanese Americans had to start from scratch, having lost all their possessions. Most were met with hostility. Their experiences were ignored for decades, and it wasn’t until 1993 that President Clinton sent an apology to the surviving former inhabitants of the relocation centers. In hindsight, a more balanced and honest picture than that which Adams presented might have helped raise awareness and sympathy among other Americans and soften their hearts sooner. Thus, ironically, his idealism may have attributed to the failure of achieving his goal.

(text: Pauline Dorhout)