From 1943 to 1944, photographer Ansel Adams dedicated himself to documenting the lives of Japanese-Americans at Manzanar, a U.S. government internment camp set up during World War II in Inyo County, California.
A new exhibition that opened last week at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles invites the public to witness history through the lens of one of the most famous U.S. photographers. The black-and-white landscapes and touching portraits on view in "Ansel Adams at Manzanar" articulate a commentary on the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans that Adams tried to initiate 60 years ago.
The exhibit, which runs through Feb. 18, features more than 50 vintage prints capturing all aspects of life at Manzanar, from an energetic high school boy's football practice to the desolate, barracks-speckled desert landscape.
After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, U.S. civilian and military officials questioned the loyalty of the ethnic Japanese on the West Coast, regarding them as a security threat. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized internment and some 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated during the war to camps like Manzanar.