The Photographs:
Patti Hirahara, of Anaheim, California, is the last born descendant of the Hirahara family in the United States and a third generation photographer. Her family's unique story of how her grandfather George Hirahara built a secret photo darkroom and mini photo studio under his family's barrack apartment 15-9-A in Heart Mountain, Wyoming and produced a collection of over 2,000 photographs is relatively unknown. From 1943 - 1945, George -- and his high school-aged son Frank C. Hirahara -- took and processed what is considered to be the largest private collection of photos taken at this Japanese American incarceration camp.
Being in America since 1907 from Wakayama Prefecture in Japan, three generations of Patti Hirahara's family came from Yakima, Washington where her grandfather George ran the Pacific Hotel before their incarceration during World War II. Her family, while in Heart Mountain, ordered their camera equipment and supplies from the Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck mail order catalogs.
In 2010, Patti Hirahara donated her grandfather's and father's Heart Mountain photographs to Washington State University, Frank's alma mater. A National Park Service grant the following year funded the collection's digitization and preservation --giving the public access to the documented weddings, cultural events, sports, funerals and more that took place under barbed wire and the watchful eyes of guards.
Since then, the collection's images have been part of ground-breaking projects delving into the history of the Japanese American incarceration during World War II. These have included the Emmy Award-winning documentary "Witness: The Legacy of Heart Mountain," co-produced by ABC7 Los Angeles Eyewitness News anchor David Ono and Emmy Award-winning TV editor and videographer Jeff MacIntyre; and "Allegiance," a Broadway musical inspired by the personal experiences of actor George Takei.
The Program:
On October 12 at the Roosevelt Library,
Dr. Trevor James Bond, Co-Director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation and Associate Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections at the
Washington State University Libraries, will introduce the WSU George and Frank C. Hirahara Collection and its donor Patti Hirahara.
During this evening program, Patti Hirahara will present and discuss some of the most iconic photos in the collection while exploring the efforts of two extraordinary men who documented their lives as Japanese Americans incarcerated at Heart Mountain. Their work is now part of the FDR Library's current exhibition "Images of Internment: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II."