Gary Y. OkihiroReviews

Impounded by Dorothea Lange shares 119 previously censored photographs of the Japanese-American Internment process during WWII. Important images for young people to see, because these are the very pictures that the government was trying to hide from the public during the time of internment.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, and although it was still good, I wish they would have cut so much of the backstory about Lange herself. However, I did find that the photographs that had been under wraps for decades were interesting.

I started this book with considerable excitement and, while it was good, it was not nearly as powerful as I had anticipated, and not because of the text. The first 80 pages is an abbreviated history of Dorothea Lange and her photography that contains interesting information about her extensive photography of the Great Depression that made her famous: It also sets the scene for the racist policies leading to Japanese Americans being placed in concentration camps for the duration of the war. Although Lange was working for the U.S. Government, specifically hired to document the internment process, her revealing images were impounded, not seeing the light of day for decades afterwards. This result in this photography to be lesser known even at the time she was doing the work. My chief disappointment lies in the substandard quality of the printing, lessening the impact of the photos chosen for this larger than normal formatted book. Given the importance of the images in a book about photography (!), I am amazed that less attention was paid to the quality of the paper and printing. The scenes/subject matter she photographed were limited because of the strictures under which she worked---some officials fully cognizant of her progressive (and anti-racist) leanings---thus making it difficult for her to accomplish that for which she was paid: documentation of the internment process. Her work does, though, provide a glimpse into a world that has been a stain on Americans’ concepts of equality and fair play. This book is good but, for a variety of reasons extending beyond the images themselves, lacks the power and impact of her other work. This work, although flawed, should serve as a warning to current day Americans who want to intern or otherwise segregate other Americans because of their race, religion, or national origin.

I had looked forward to reading this book, but it was a disappointment to me. The subject matter and the photographs were exactly what I was looking for, but the format was difficult to read and sucked the life out of it for me. I'll try again another time.

E18406 R44 1988