{"id":478703,"date":"2026-09-28T22:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478703\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T22:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T22:56:12","slug":"iconic-photos-of-japanese-american-incarceration-turn-immersive-at-omca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/478703\/","title":{"rendered":"Iconic photos of Japanese American incarceration turn immersive at OMCA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the striking photograph, a young Japanese American girl is dressed in a plaid peacoat and round hat, her face wearing a pleasant expression that could read as a smile.<\/p>\n

She and her mother are also wearing paper tags dangling from a string on their lapels, like they are pieces of cargo.<\/p>\n

The photo, taken by Dorothea Lange in Hayward of a young Mae Yanagi<\/a> and her family, captures the moment just before she and her family boarded a bus in May 1942 to be relocated to a concentration camp. The lives of roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on Japan and, two months later, issued Executive Order 9066<\/a>, authorizing their roundup and detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The image is one of several in the archives of Lange, and another photographer, Russell Lee, that captured the attention of Japanese artist Masaki Fujihata. These images form the raw material for an immersive augmented reality exhibit that opened September 18 at the Oakland Museum of California, titled \u201cBeHere \/ 1942<\/a>: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fujihata enlarges the iconic photograph of Yanagi until her eyes take up an entire wall at the entrance of the exhibit. The closeup allows visitors to notice the reflection in her eyes, which appears to show the shadowy figures of several people. One is likely Lange, the photographer. Fujihata suspects the others are government officials and maybe military police, and for him it opened up a new interpretation of Yanagi\u2019s expression. In fact, he notes, her eyes are not smiling at all. \u201cPhotography contains the story behind the surface,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Fujihata stands in front an enlarged detail of Dorothea Lange\u2019s photo of Mae Yanagi and her family just before their forced relocation to prison camps at the entrance to \u201cBeHere\/1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration\u201d at OMCA. The ghostly reflections of officers or photographers are visible in her eyes. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

The exhibit, open through December 27, uses photos from Lange and Lee that they took under the auspices of the government agency that supervised the roundups, the War Relocation Authority<\/a>. Several of them were taken in Oakland. Using AR, a visitor can experience the moments just before hundreds of families were taken away to camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our first contemporary art exhibition focused on this story,\u201d said Carin Adams, senior art curator at OMCA, which holds Lange\u2019s archives. \u201cIt\u2019s the most complex, mediawise, that we have attempted.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Reporting to 1117 Oak Street<\/p>\n

The 1930s was the peak of social documentary photography, with Lange as one of its most famous practitioners. Her most celebrated image is \u201cMigrant Mother,\u201d the Depression-era photo of a mother\u2019s worn look as she holds her infant and her two young children bury their faces in her neck. Lange made that image while working for the Farm Security Administration.<\/p>\n

Fujihata\u2019s exploration of Lange\u2019s archives started through UCLA\u2019s Yanai Initiative<\/a>, where he produced a similar exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, that opened in 2022 to commemorate the events 80 years later.<\/p>\n

For the Oakland exhibit, Fujihata explores a particular historical moment that occurred very near the Oakland Museum, at 1117 Oak Street, now the home of Alameda County Law Library<\/a>. This is where many Japanese American residents of the East Bay had to report just before being removed to Tanforan Assembly Center<\/a> in San Bruno. From the East Bay alone, thousands of people ended up at Tanforan, including 1,494 people from Oakland, 1,182 from Berkeley, and 1,211 from Hayward.<\/p>\n

\u201cStore owners, students, seniors, teachers, community leaders were among those instructed to report to this building, bringing only what they could carry,\u201d Dorothy Lazard, who was for many years the Oakland History Room\u2019s historian and librarian, wrote in a post about that time for the Oakland Public Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The people, mostly U.S. citizens, were later shipped off to a wartime concentration camp in Topaz, Utah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Baggage of evacuees of Japanese ancestry piled on the sidewalk of Oak Street in Oakland, 1942. Credit: Dorothea Lange\/Courtesy of the National Archives<\/p>\n

The executive order and ensuing exclusion orders gave people little time to prepare to leave the life as they knew it. The show includes photos that Lange took on the museum side of the street, where there was once a row of Victorian homes. We see piles of luggages in front of two homes, a reminder to viewers that people had to pack up their entire lives into what they could fit in a few bundles and suitcases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Historic documents show that 1,790 people of Japanese descent lived in Oakland<\/a> in 1940<\/a>, just before the removal order \u2014 among the largest Japanese American communities in the state<\/a>. Oakland\u2019s Japanese American community was vibrant. There were churches<\/a>, including the Buddhist Church of Oakland<\/a>, now 125 years old. There were robust businesses, from nurseries to produce markets and dentist offices. And there were homes throughout Oakland, largely concentrated near Chinatown<\/a> and West Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A sign reading \u201cI am an American\u201d placed in the window of the Wanto Co. store at Eighth and Franklin streets in Oakland, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The owner, a University of California graduate, would later be imprisoned by the War Relocation Authority for the duration of the war. Credit: Dorothea Lange\/Courtesy of the National Archives<\/p>\n

Another famous photo by Lange shows a Japanese American-owned storefront there with the words, \u201cI AM AN AMERICAN<\/a>\u201d displayed in bold letters. The photo was taken at 8th and Franklin streets<\/a>, where a Chase bank now resides, in present-day Chinatown.<\/p>\n

Just after the war, \u201cthe total number of people that returned [to Oakland] was 906,\u201d according to Jonathan van Harmelen, the staff historian at Densho<\/a>, an educational nonprofit that archives the history of Japanese American incarceration during the war, citing data collected by the War Relocation Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Harmelen said this population decline tracks with broader patterns of post-war resettlement. Many people lost their homes and businesses<\/a> during the war. When they tried to return to the West Coast, some faced hostility. Many young adults resettled<\/a> in the Midwest and along the East Coast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These historic events may resonate for visitors to the exhibit today, Adams said, as green card holders and US citizens are being detained, and sometimes disappeared<\/a>, by ICE, including those who have committed no crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fujihata wanted to focus on the pivotal moment when people were about to board the bus, a moment that everyone who was forced into the camps shared. Once in the camps, their lives diverged and became more complex, with 10 main camps spread across multiple states away from the coasts, which were deemed exclusion zones. None knew what was to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the people thought the war would end in three months,\u201d Fujihata said. In fact, many families were locked up for three and a half years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Photographs of people at their most vulnerable\u2019<\/p>\n

The main exhibit is indoors, featuring massive reproductions of Lange\u2019s photos and a new video by Fujihata of people reading the executive order, filmed in Oakland with East Bay residents.<\/p>\n

In an interactive portion of the exhibit, you can take on the role of photographer during this moment in history. Walk up to a table to borrow a replica of the large-format Graflex camera that Lange often used. Wear it around your neck and look down into the viewfinder. You will be transported, via AR, to a scene where people are waiting to board a train in Little Tokyo. You decide what photos to take by pressing a button; there\u2019s an iPhone inside the case, and the photos you take suddenly appear on a nearby wall, drawing attention to the choices you make.<\/p>\n

\"\"The inside of the modified graflex camera used in the augmented reality experience in \u201cBeHere\/1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration\u201d by artist Masaki Fujihata at Oakland Museum of California. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

\"\"A replica of the kind of camera used by Dorothea Lange in her documentation of the forced removal of Japanese Americans for the War Relocation Authority. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

Next to this AR experience are some of Lee\u2019s photos of people waiting to board trains at the Santa Fe train station in Los Angeles, waiting with their luggage. In contrast to many of Lange\u2019s more intimate portraits of families, Lee\u2019s images zoom out to include news photographers and government officials within the frame, highlighting how many were witness to these forced incarcerations.<\/p>\n

Fujihata\u2019s exhibit poses some complex questions: What choices did those photographers make at the time? And what choices would you make in their shoes? Would you take photos of the officers enforcing the removals? Or would you take a photo of a child\u2019s face as she sits and waits?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, we have phones available at most times, and we can choose document many things. What do we document? What rights do vulnerable subjects have?<\/p>\n

Adams, the curator, sees Lange as a \u201chumanist\u201d and notes that her images of the removals were suppressed during the war. \u201cShe was living her values as a person and as a photographer that aligned with her view of justice,\u201d Adam said. \u201cBut they\u2019re still really complicated images. They\u2019re photographs of people at their most vulnerable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A new multipanel video installation by Fujihata, filmed in Oakland, features East Bay residents reading President Franklin Delano Roosevelt\u2019s executive order that set in motion the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

Outside on the Oak Street Plaza, you can check out an iPad from a staffer at a table. When you look around the plaza through the screen, the space appears populated with dozens of people milling around or sitting with their suitcases. \u201cThey are actual humans,\u201d Fujihata said, not AI. Fujihata filmed the scenes in Tokyo during the pandemic, and later in Los Angeles. The actors are everyday people alongside some professional actors. A few of them are elders who lived through the incarceration camps. Others are children or descendants of people who were incarcerated. One of the figures is Fujihata himself.<\/p>\n

\"\"Artist Masaki Fujihata holds a tablet that uses augmented reality to allow visitors to place themselves inside the moment of forced removal in Oakland in \u201cBeHere\/1942: A New Lens on the Japanese American Incarceration\u201d which opened at the Oakland Museum of California September 18, 2026. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

\"\"The view through an iPad screen of the augmented reality exhibit in OMCA\u2019s Oak Street Plaza, part of \u201cBeHere\/1942.\u201d Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

If you look through the iPad out beyond the museum, you\u2019ll see the buses waiting. The moment is a recreation of when families departed to Tanforan on a Thursday on May 7, 1942.<\/p>\n

Many are wearing formal clothes; Fujihata had a costume designer find clothing characteristic of the 1940s. The scene is a reenactment, Fujihata said, but \u201cwhen the public comes here to experience it, they will see it as something that happened in this space.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He suspects that this part of the exhibit may bring up the deepest reactions, since visitors will be experiencing it so close to where the historical events occurred.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The exhibit also includes a resource area, where people can learn more about this history or take action. A series of postcards directs people to organizations, including Densho and the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, which each host collections of photos and historical records. There\u2019s a link to write a letter opposing the Trump administration\u2019s plans to close the National Archives<\/a> in San Francisco, located in San Bruno. The archives hold historic records dating back to the 1850s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ground you\u2019re standing on is where the events happened 80 years ago,\u201d van Harmelen, who saw the exhibit in Los Angeles, said. \u201cIt helps people rethink where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

OMCA has a permanent exhibit dedicated to the history of the Japanese American incarceration experience in the history gallery, called \u201cSent Away,\u201d and some of Lange\u2019s photos from this time period are featured in the gallery that displays items from the museum\u2019s permanent collection. All of Lange\u2019s photos for the WPA are in the public domain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lange continues to inspire new artforms. Poet Tess Taylor studied the archives at OMCA, which includes Lange\u2019s notebooks from the time, and wrote a theatrical production called \u201cLast West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange.\u201d Pop-up scenes from the play will be staged on October 17 at OMCA\u2019s James Moore Theatre.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than 40 years after Mae Yanagi<\/a> and her family were rounded up and forced to live in the camps, President Ronald Reagan issued a formal apology and reparations of $20,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Oakland, other events memorialize the Japanese American residents who lost everything they\u2019d built and spent the war incarcerated. The Oakland Asian Cultural Center<\/a> hosts Day of Remembrance events, as do other Bay Area organizations<\/a>. Descendents of the incarcerated also commemorate the events through pilgrimages to the actual prison camps, from Tule Lake and Manzanar in California to Rohwer in Arkansas.<\/p>\n

Adams said her mother, now 91, was incarcerated at the camp at Tule Lake as a child. She said Fujihata\u2019s view as an outsider, from Japan, gives the public an opportunity to see things in a new light. \u201cHe\u2019s offering us a way to see things we wouldn\u2019t have seen without his intense curiosity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A detail of Fujihata\u2019s recreation of the moment of forced removal in 1942 in \u201cBeHere\/1942\u201d at OMCA. Credit: Carolyn Fong for The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading!<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

Tasneem Raja
Editor-in-Chief, The Oaklandside<\/p>\n

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