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

Iwasaki,Hikaru “Carl”

(1923 - 2016) WRA photographer

Career as a professional

Somehow I met this Time and Life correspondent in Denver. Time and Life had a bureau there. And one day there was a senatorial race up in Wyoming. And Life magazine, all the photographers were tied up in Chicago and Los Angeles. So New York told this correspondent in Denver to get anybody to go and cover the story. So he said, “Would you like to go?” and I said, “Sure.” Went up, covered the senatorial race, and it made two and a half pages. So that was my start. After that, there was a tremendous period in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, of snow storm. It went on for weeks. So they sent me to cover the storm. And by luck, I was sent to the border of Wyoming and Colorado. And there, by chance, I found this cow, frozen. Completely frozen. He is standing there. Standing up. Frozen. I have pictures of it. And that made a full page. And after that, I started to get more and more assignments. And eventually I started working for Life.

Life magazine photographers 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)