Stillness in the Wind: Photographs of Manzanar by Toyo Miyatake and Dorothea Lange

AIPAD was honored to host an in-depth discussion on the photographic images created at Manzanar in this first collaboration with the Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA), moderated by Curator Kristen Hayashi. Manzanar was one of numerous incarceration camps in the United States built to unjustly incarcerate more than 120,000 Japanese Americans beginning in 1942 in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. 

Watch this virtual panel here for a special presentation of images by Toko Miyatake, Dorothea Lange, Paul Kitagaki, Jr., and others, with a discussion of the impacts of the incarceration camps and the resilience of the Japanese American community.

Families were often given less than 48 hours notice to vacate their homes, carrying few belongings into the unknown as they were taken to remote incarceration camps such as Manzanar, located just east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

Alan Miyatake, owner and photographer of Toyo Miyatake Studio, has worked for the family business for over 50 years. He worked and trained under the founder, Toyo Miyatake and father Archie in his 3 generation business which was founded in 1923 in Los Angeles, CA and celebrated the studio 100th anniversary in 2023. Alan was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and is involved in various local community organizations. Alan is married to April and has two daughters, Sydney and Lindsey.

Alan manages the Toyo Miyatake Manzanar Internment Camp Collection as well as Toyo Miyatake’s artistic Salon images taken in the early 1920’s. Toyo’s Manzanar photos have been exhibited at the Beach Museum in Kansas, The Museum of Tolerance in California, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and the Maui Nisei Veterans Memorial Center. Alan has photographed famous people such as the Emperor of Japan, Condoleezza Rice, Vince Scully, Joe Biden and many more.

Photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. has spent a lifetime documenting war, disaster, injustice, and resilience across the globe—from Iraq under Saddam Hussein to earthquake-ravaged Mexico City and beyond. A Pulitzer Prize-winning visual journalist, his work is defined by a commitment to preserving powerful human stories. He has also photographed athletes across 12 Olympic Games, capturing the emotion behind competition—from quiet moments of focus to the intensity of victory and defeat. His images in sports such as track and field, swimming, and figure skating bring audiences closer to the human side of the world’s biggest stage.

Kitagaki’s deeply personal project, Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit, revisits the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II—an experience that included his own family, who were photographed by Dorothea Lange. Pairing historic images with contemporary portraits, he spent 15 years locating and photographing more than 70 survivors and descendants. The project led to his book, Behind Barbed Wire: Searching for Japanese Americans Incarcerated During World War II, and has toured museums, universities, and cultural institutions nationwide since 2012, continuing his mission to preserve memory, history, and the enduring human spirit.

Elizabeth Partridge often writes about art and social justice issues, as she did in Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake and Ansel Adams Photographs Reveal about the Japanese American Incarceration. Partridge has been short-listed twice for the National Book Award and has won the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award, the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal, and the BolognaRagazzi in the Special Category of Photography. Her most recent picture book, Imogen: The Life and Work of Imogen Cunningham is about her grandmother. www.elizabethpartridge.com

Kristen Hayashi, Ph.D. is curator of history and director of collections at the Japanese American National Museum, where she oversees the permanent collection and curates content. Hayashi earned a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Riverside. Her dissertation, Making Home Again: Japanese American Resettlement in Post-World War II Los Angeles, 1945-1955 began to examine the early post-war period and what it took for Japanese Americans to restart their lives.

For more information, please visit JANM’s website here: https://janm.org/

Photograph of Mitsunobu “Mits” Kojimoto copyright and courtesy of Paul Kitagaki, Jr.