Interviews

1. His father describes the importance of photographing camp life

2. His father didn't spend too much time with the family

Miyatake,Archie

(1924-2016) Photographer and businessman.

His father describes the importance of photographing camp life

After he got into camp, he called me and told me I have something to tell you. I didn't know what he was going to tell me. I was just so curious because he rarely set me aside like this and says something so serious and he wants to talk to me, because he was so busy with his work. He never did talk to the children that much. But because of that I was really anxious to hear what he wanted to say, and this is what he told me. He said, You know, as a photographer, I have a responsibility. I didn't know what he was talking about, responsibility. He says, As a photographer I have a responsibility to record the camp life, because the kind of thing that happened to us should never happen in the future again.

photography Toyo Miyatake World War II camps

Date: March 22, 2001

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Robert Nakamura, Karen Ishizuka

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

Interviewee Bio

Archie Miyatake, the son of famed photographer Toyo Miyatake, was born in Los Angeles in 1924. In 1942 he was incarcerated in the Manzanar concentration camp where he and his family were confined for the duration of World War II—and where he graduated from high school. A photographer himself, Archie continued to run the Toyo Miyatake Studio in Little Tokyo after his father’s death in 1979, eventually moving the business to its current location in San Gabriel, California. He passed away on December 20, 2016, at age 92. (December 2016)