Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Dorothea Lange’s Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps  (Read 6311 times)

Jim Metzger

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 136

Dorothea Lange: Grab A Hunk of Lightning, On PBS, American Masters. I believe it is available for $ online. Well worth the viewing.

Lange was compelled to photograph and tackled many other social issues.

Jim
Logged

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074

And Stamper, I joined the military not all that long after WW II. As Rob says, there were no "gays" in those days. There was a guy in one unit I was in who, it turned out, was homosexual, though nobody knew that. One day a couple feds -- I'm not sure what agency, but I suspect FBI -- dropped in and had a long, secret chat with the guy in a closed room. He left with them and was never seen around the outfit again, but he didn't go to a stockade

Hair splitting? I was using modern vernacular that guys who are far younger than yourselfs would understand???

Not a difficult thing to understand in today's society... pink has been used to represent a lot of things, even, obviously, homosexual votes.

"I have read about US troops, who were gay, being interred in a pink stockade immediately after serving in WW2."

I didn't know it was legal to bury people in stockades, though not sure about the spreading of ashes; but hey, in America...

WW2 didn't end as recently as your post would have to indicate for that to be true. That the word 'pink' would have been used in that way, in the mid-forties, seems unlikely. Perhaps I led a sheltered life, so I just didn't hear it. Anyway, it certainly rings no old bells for me, only far more recent and strident ones.

;-)

Rob

Petrus

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 952

Touko Laaksonen, better known by his moniker "Tom of Finland", served as a decorated air defence lieutenant in the II WW. When he died in 1991, quite famous in international gay circles, most of his immediate family still had no clue about he been gay or what he had been doing for a living for the past decades.

Things really were different then.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2017, 09:57:12 am by Petrus »
Logged

N80

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 621

I had an uncle who was openly gay in the early 50's. This was in the southern U.S. Bible belt. It was not talked about but he was treated (by his family) no differently from anyone else and as a prominent physician in New Orleans he was always held up to us kids as a model of respect. His lifelong partner was a friend of our family and accepted as well. They were both gracious, kind and hospitable (with their home inf the French Quarter, where their lifestyle was certainly more accepted). So on the one hand, his 'lifestyle' was not approved of and rarely if ever discussed, but he remained a beloved and respected family member until his death. A paradox for sure. And I'm certain there were difficult and tense times that I was unaware off. But certainly not the horror story some had to live through back then.
Logged
George

"What is truth?" Pontius  Pilate

Jim Pascoe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1131
    • http://www.jimpascoe.co.uk

Very interesting photographs and harrowing story for these families.  I found the following quotes are not only chilling, but quite hypocritical too - considering most Americans at that time were immigrants.

“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”
— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942

"........The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
— General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command

I think I read Schewe's original post correctly - he was warning Americans to not make the same error again - mistaking people from a different race or religion as enemies, when in fact the vast majority of them are America-loving citizens.

Jim
Logged

JNB_Rare

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1052
    • JNB54

“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched—so a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents—grows up to be a Japanese, not an American.”
— Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1942

"........The very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken.”
— General John L. DeWitt, head of the U.S. Army’s Western Defense Command

The Politics of Demonization.
Logged

Osprey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 102

Not sure I would characterize New Orleans as the Bible Belt.  Always been more of its own thing.

I had an uncle who was openly gay in the early 50's. This was in the southern U.S. Bible belt. It was not talked about but he was treated (by his family) no differently from anyone else and as a prominent physician in New Orleans he was always held up to us kids as a model of respect. His lifelong partner was a friend of our family and accepted as well. They were both gracious, kind and hospitable (with their home inf the French Quarter, where their lifestyle was certainly more accepted). So on the one hand, his 'lifestyle' was not approved of and rarely if ever discussed, but he remained a beloved and respected family member until his death. A paradox for sure. And I'm certain there were difficult and tense times that I was unaware off. But certainly not the horror story some had to live through back then.
Logged

N80

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 621

Not sure I would characterize New Orleans as the Bible Belt.  Always been more of its own thing.

Agreed. He was born and raised in SC. I'm sure he chose N.O. for that very reason and much closer to home than San Francisco. He came home a few times a year and hosted us in his home fairly often.
Logged
George

"What is truth?" Pontius  Pilate
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up