‘Suffering under a Great Injustice’, 1943, by Ansel Adams

‘In 1943, Ansel Adams documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II.’

- ‘Suffering under a Great Injustice’: Library of Congress

 

10 comments to ‘Suffering under a Great Injustice’, 1943, by Ansel Adams

  • Jed Sutherland

    Boy, people would kill for a view like that now.

    It was very unfair to transport these people away from the west coast in Canada and the U.S. By all accounts though, it was a lot worse if you were interned by the Japanese.

  • eric

    “By all accounts though, it was a lot worse if you were interned by the Japanese.” This comparison sounds like a justification…

  • August

    I love the way Ansel Adams mixes drama and grandeur with the humble and humanistic aspect here.

  • Richard Clark

    This is a truly great collection. I remember visiting LACMA and viewing the display of the Camp? Internment Center? a few years ago, a very humbling experience. America is a country of opposites, on one hand we interfere overseas and on the other hand we can’t really tell who is an American. A troubling dichotomy? We had one in Featherston New Zealand and we have never come to terms with it.

  • Alan Millar

    “Boy, people would kill for a view like that now.

    It was very unfair to transport these people away from the west coast in Canada and the U.S. By all accounts though, it was a lot worse if you were interned by the Japanese.”

    Hopefully one day you’ll know enough to be ashamed of this comment.

  • Harry

    I was born in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines in 1942.
    My mother and I were in a civilian camp, my father in a military camp.
    You can have no idea how infinitely better these people were treated here, right or wrong. And may you never know.
    My father did not survive his camp (ours was very bad but the military was treated much worse), he never got to see me, but we know he did know I was born.
    And, the Japanese government does not like to admit to the conditions, to this day. At least here, we can look at it and discuss it.

  • Phil

    So what? These are Americans of Japanese ancestry ya moron. They were as Japanese as Eisenhower was German, you jackass.

  • Olde Phart

    Wonderful! All of you who are so indignant in 2024: how would you have felt in 1942? I was a high school student in So. Cal. at the time and had friends who were interned. I thought it an injustice and said so, at first. I soon learned to shut up. I found NO sympathetic listeners. You cannot imagine the spirit of the times if you weren’t there. It is a testimony to Americans that there were no lynchings or other personal outrages that I know of. There were spys among the group; I knew one and went to school with his children. I remember telling them how sad I was that their father had been arrested.
    The government panicked. The entire West Coast was defended by a few pre-Civil War forts. They had single soldiers with dogs patrolling the beaches. Our great Pacific fleet, around which our defenses had been built, was in ruins, sunk. The Japanese could have walked in. Our newly drafted army was in Louisiana traing with brooms for rifles and trucks carrying “TANK” signs.
    We have acknowledged our mistake, paid an indemnity and apologized ad nauseum. Let it rest!

  • older phart

    Eric,m it i too bad ;that you do not have the opportunity to chat with your grandpa Fred, but you can chat with me, your grand uncle. I too was old enough to know what was going on and why regarding the actions of our goverment in 1943. What was the country of origin that sunk most of our naval fleet and many lives were lost. This went on by way, while Japanese ambassadors were in the White House with President Roosevelt talking of peaceful activities. What would be in your mind to immediately protect your population and country ? and so on *******

  • Robin Hull

    I was there a couple of weeks ago. It felt lonely.

Leave a Reply

  

  

  

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>