History break: Internment camp yearbook
Not much of a film or video angle on this, but I just had to share: My friend AngryAsianMan points out an amazing artifact from the University of California's digital historical library. It's the entire 1944-45 yearbook of Newell High School, which was at the Tule Lake internment camp for Japanese-Americans. All 80 pages have been scanned. Apparently it was a good-sized school.
What could we learn from a document like this? The questions it raises are fascinating. Apart from faculty, this was an all-Japanese-American school. How did these kids see themselves? How did they see their surroundings, which are wonderfully evoked in illustrations by a girl named Flo Oshiro? How did the experience of being only among their own kind for a few formative years shape their attitudes and lives afterward? Were some able to be class president, star baseball player, or cheerleader who wouldn't have had that chance in the public school in their hometown? What kind of culture grew up there, for that brief, exceptional time?
Of course, history tells us that these kinds of things weren't on the minds of most Japanese-Americans at the time. Internment was an extended limbo, full of annoying privations, and they just wanted to go home. But looking over this yearbook just makes me wonder. The most tantalizing page is at the end, the one titled "Autographs." There are none on the copy scanned and posted here, but I'd love to read one filled with notes and signatures. What thoughts did these young classmates share with one another in their old-fashioned penmanship -- some looking toward a summer in a small camp all together, some about to graduate with nowhere to go, some about to volunteer to fight for the country that had interned them?
I do have a couple of film recommendations here: The documentary Topaz was shot surreptitiously at the Utah camp of the same name by internee Dave Tatsuno and is well worth checking out if you have a chance. And apparently, some of Tatsuno's footage was used in the Topaz baseball drama American Pastime, which I've heard is quite good.
What could we learn from a document like this? The questions it raises are fascinating. Apart from faculty, this was an all-Japanese-American school. How did these kids see themselves? How did they see their surroundings, which are wonderfully evoked in illustrations by a girl named Flo Oshiro? How did the experience of being only among their own kind for a few formative years shape their attitudes and lives afterward? Were some able to be class president, star baseball player, or cheerleader who wouldn't have had that chance in the public school in their hometown? What kind of culture grew up there, for that brief, exceptional time?
Of course, history tells us that these kinds of things weren't on the minds of most Japanese-Americans at the time. Internment was an extended limbo, full of annoying privations, and they just wanted to go home. But looking over this yearbook just makes me wonder. The most tantalizing page is at the end, the one titled "Autographs." There are none on the copy scanned and posted here, but I'd love to read one filled with notes and signatures. What thoughts did these young classmates share with one another in their old-fashioned penmanship -- some looking toward a summer in a small camp all together, some about to graduate with nowhere to go, some about to volunteer to fight for the country that had interned them?
I do have a couple of film recommendations here: The documentary Topaz was shot surreptitiously at the Utah camp of the same name by internee Dave Tatsuno and is well worth checking out if you have a chance. And apparently, some of Tatsuno's footage was used in the Topaz baseball drama American Pastime, which I've heard is quite good.
Labels: history
posted by Steve at
7:36 PM
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