1 photograph : gelatin silver print ; mount 24 x 30 cm. | Photograph shows multi-ethnic group of schoolgirls at the Raphael Weill Public School with their hands on their hearts saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Included in the photograph are Helene Mihara née Hideno Nakamoto (front row, Japanese American girl in plaid coat on the left) and Mary Ann Yahiro née Yoko Itashiki (front row, Japanese American girl in plaid coat on the right). In February 1942, Hideno's father, Jitsuzo Nakamoto, a San Francisco businessman, was arrested and incarcerated at Fort Lincoln, a Department of Justice camp for "enemy aliens" in Bismarck, North Dakota. He was later transferred to Lordsburg Internment Camp, Lordsburg, New Mexico, before being reunited with his family 15 months later at Tule Lake Relocation Center in Newell, California. Soon after the photograph was taken, Hideno, her mother, Fusaye, and her sister, Takako, were forcibly removed to Tanforan Assembly Center before being transferred to Tule Lake Relocation Center and later Central Utah Relocation Center, Topaz, Utah. Yoko's mother, Fuku Ogura Itasaki, a Japanese language teacher, was also arrested as an "enemy alien" and incarcerated at Camp Sharp Park, Sharp Park, California. She died there before being reunited with her family. Yoko's father, Torozimen Itashiki, and the rest of the family were forcibly removed to Tanforan Assembly Center before being transferred to Topaz. (Sources: interview with Helene Mihara, Nov. 29, 2021; Kitagaki, Paul, Jr. Behind barbed wire, 2019, page 29)
Dorothea Lange
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