Inspiration

This photo of my great-grandfather was a seed of inspiration for my current novel, BENEATH THE WIDE SILK SKY, the story of a Japanese American teen’s experiences during the five months between Pearl Harbor’s bombing and her family’s exile to an internment camp.

In 1942, my family–my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles–were incarcerated in Japanese American prison camps. In the few days they were given to prepare for evacuation, the acclaimed photographer Dorothea Lange visited and took their pictures. She had been hired by the U.S. government to make a record of the evacuation. Though she opposed the mass incarceration, she took the commission because she believed a “true record” was necessary.

Military commanders soon found that Lange’s gritty and powerful photos reflected her opposition. They seized her photos for the duration of the war. Others were hired to take glossier photos that eased public conscience. For many years, Lange’s photos were kept from public view.

My grandparents were exiled from the west coast and imprisoned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. It was there that they met and married. My father was born in the prison hospital. After the war, the entire family was sent to Utah, temporarily forbidden from returning to their homes on the west coast. Their former lands and homes were already lost to them, so they built new lives in a new home state.

Years later, my relatives visited the Smithsonian and saw a photograph Lange had taken of my great-grandfather. Lange’s photos of the evacuation have now been published and are available to the public through the National Archives. The photos she took are an important record of what people are capable of–both of what we can do to each other out of fear and of our ability to retain humanity during times of hardship.

As I wrote my novel, I again and again came back to the question of how we define ourselves, both internally and through our actions, especially when others seek to limit our choices. Samantha Sakamoto, the protagonist I created for BENEATH THE WIDE SILK SKY, shares some of Lange’s feelings about photography and justice. I hope she also inherits the courage and perseverance characteristic of the many Japanese Americans interned during WWII.