Interviews

1. Introduction to Photography

2. Joining WRA Photographic Section

3. No WRA Censorship

4. Visiting Deep South

5. Returning to San Jose

6. Career as a professional

Hikaru “Carl” Iwasaki

(1923 - 2016) WRA photographer

No WRA Censorship

I* : What's your instruction when going to a camp? Describe what they told you.

Well usually, to photograph groups doing whatever. Some groups were into artistic type of work, paintings, and others. Just everyday life.

I: Everyday life. So, was there any intent to portray camp life in a certain way, or was it open to, “Go out and get whatever.”

It was up to me. To photograph camp life. There was no direction.

I: No agenda, no “Don’t show anything…”

No. None of that.

I: Did you ever find, there was an instance where you took something, but they said, “We can’t really show that?”

No. There was nothing was restricted. Everything was open. Which was good.

* "I" indicates an interviewer (John Esaki)

photography

Date: December 3, 2009

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Hikaru Carl Iwasaki (b. 1923) grew up in San Jose, California, developing his interest in photography while working on his high school newspaper and yearbook. With Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, the Iwasaki Family was sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center and then to a concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming—where he was forbidden to have a camera. He was given a job as an X-ray technician in the hospital where the head of the camp newspaper took notice of his abilities and recommended him for work as a photographic darkroom technician with the War Relocation Authority photo unit in Denver, Colorado. Within a year, Iwasaki had become a WRA photographer, traveling freely around the country, assigned to document hundreds of Japanese Americans who had left camp and begun resettlement in various regions of the U.S. After the War, Carl began a long career as a photographer for Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, People, and many other national publications.

He passed away on September 2016 at age 93. (September 2016)