Okubo Japanese Internment Analysis

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a state of war between the United States and the Empire of Japan on December 8th, 1941, in retaliation to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor one day prior, infectious racial tensions and diplomatic concerns spread throughout the country. In the words and experience of author and artist Miné Okubo, the Japanese American community faced increasing judgment during this time and were witness to “growing suspicion and general public antagonism” in the wake of Pearl Harbor’s trauma (Okubo 12). In reaction to the unease and anticipation of further intrusion of Japanese forces during World War II, the United States Government chose to take precautionary measures and demand mandatory internment of all Japanese American individuals to select, militarized assembly centers. The ensuing relocation and evacuation of Japanese American families succeeded in detaining approximately 120,000 individuals on United States soil. Dorothea Lange, a photographer and …show more content…
Contemporary efforts to understand historical events are dependent on documentation such as Lange’s, and her work has significantly challenged the government’s decision regarding Japanese relocation and confinement. Through the authenticity of her image, composition of her subjects, and ability to represent complex, fluid emotions in the still portrait, Dorothea Lange opposes the mistreatment of Japanese Americans by giving humanity back to internees and drawing on human empathy and compassion. Her image, Hayward, California – Grandfather and Grandchildren, will last as a permanent, everlasting record of injustice against not a foreign threat to America’s existence, but an elderly gentleman and his two fresh-faced