WP4 Blog 2

After Monday’s presentation that showed us how to utilize the USC Libraries Research Guides and Digital Library for our primary sources, I found the USC Digital Library’s Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive that captured Japanese American incarceration during World War II. These images “document scenes of: 1) the mass removal and incarceration process; 2) life in camps at Manzanar, Santa Anita, Tanforan, and Tule Lake; 3) post-war repatriation to Japan”. Additionally, “[i]t features newly digitized photographs, documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, letters, oral histories, and inventories of archival collection”. From my personal experience, my history classes only would project pictures of the incarceration camps but Japanese Americans were never in these photographs. By excluding images of these Japanese American, it neglects to acknowledge the moral injustice of forcing American citizens to leave their homes and live in deserted areas. For this reason, I believe that showing these images are an important starting point for ensuring that this event is more widely known and understood to the fullest extent. 

https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/archive/Japanese-American-Incarceration-Images--1941-1946-2A3BF1O6GQ4.html  

Hearst Collection of the Los Angeles Examiner. “Japanese American Incarceration Images, 1941-1946.” University of Southern California Libraries: Collection Folder, University of Southern California Regional History Collection, https://digitallibrary.usc.edu/archive/Japanese-American-Incarceration-Images--1941-1946-2A3BF1O6GQ4.html. 

Image from the source above:

Caption: "They're Japanese -- but loyal Americans. The Tsukamotos bow their heads as the Rev. Joseph K. 

Tsukamoto, left, pastor of the Protestant Episcopal Christ Church, says grace and prays for the saf..."