More on primary sources: juxtaposition
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Last week’s blog post about the National Archives (featuring Dorothea Lange’s photo of a migrant worker) reminded me of the Dorothea Lange photos collected by Calisphere showing the Japanese relocation to Manzanar, California during World War II.
I knew Lange best for this image:

We Are California - The Great Internal Migrations via kwout
So when I stumbled on the Lange/Manzanar photos a few months ago, I was really surprised. The Japanese internment experience is rarely discussed during World War II, but when it is, it adds a powerful dimension and can provoke conversations about who is “really” American at a time when anti-immigration policies are ramping up again. The photos show folks who do what “we Americans” do, challenging the anti-Asian racism of the time.
As I browsed the images again, I realized that there is huge power in the juxtaposition of images. One thing we can do with students regardless of age is tap into their visual learning preference by asking them to comment not just on one image but on two juxtaposed images. For example, here are screenshots of two wash lines. If you showed one and asked students to comment on the owners, then showed the other and asked the same question, how would the student responses differ? What if they were the same laundry line? What can we learn about citizens whose clothelines contain both Eastern and Western clothing? How could this connect them to a conversation about Japanese internment, pride in Japanese heritage, or the historical setting of Farewell to Manzanar?
You can view more of the Dorothea Lange photodocumentation of Japanese internment on the Calisphere Web site.
Last week’s blog post about the National Archives (featuring Dorothea Lange’s photo of a migrant worker) reminded me of the Dorothea Lange photos collected by Calisphere showing the Japanese relocation to Manzanar, California during World War II.
I knew Lange best for this image:

We Are California - The Great Internal Migrations via kwout
So when I stumbled on the Lange/Manzanar photos a few months ago, I was really surprised. The Japanese internment experience is rarely discussed during World War II, but when it is, it adds a powerful dimension and can provoke conversations about who is “really” American at a time when anti-immigration policies are ramping up again. The photos show folks who do what “we Americans” do, challenging the anti-Asian racism of the time.
As I browsed the images again, I realized that there is huge power in the juxtaposition of images. One thing we can do with students regardless of age is tap into their visual learning preference by asking them to comment not just on one image but on two juxtaposed images. For example, here are screenshots of two wash lines. If you showed one and asked students to comment on the owners, then showed the other and asked the same question, how would the student responses differ? What if they were the same laundry line? What can we learn about citizens whose clothelines contain both Eastern and Western clothing? How could this connect them to a conversation about Japanese internment, pride in Japanese heritage, or the historical setting of Farewell to Manzanar?
You can view more of the Dorothea Lange photodocumentation of Japanese internment on the Calisphere Web site.









