[Yamamoto Fujitaro, 10-1-42]

Hoshida, George [ bio ]

Description

2 drawings on paper, laminated (1 sheet) : ink ; left image 4 x 2.75 in., right image 4 x 2.75 in., on sheet 6 x 9.5 in.

Ink portraits of two men, Fujitaro Yamamoto and Minoru Murata, at Lordsburg Justice Department Camp, New Mexico on October 1, 1943. Both have black line borders drawn over pencil.
Left portrait of Fujitaro Yamamoto, 58 year-old originally from Koji, Japan. Yamamoto faces the viewer dressed in a jacket with frog closures and a mandarin collar open at neck. His hair is closely cropped around his round face. He has a mustache and lined forehead. He looks to left of the viewer. Visible from shoulders up.
Right portrait of Minoru Murata, 60 year-old of Tucson, Arizona originally from Yamaguchi, Japan. Murata faces the viewer dressed in a jacket with frog closures and a mandarin collar open at neck. His hair is closely cropped above a high forehead. He has a small mustache above pursed lips and lined forehead. Visible from chest up.

Caption
Hoshida was one of the seven to nine hundred Japanese Americans in Hawaii who were incarcerated in Justice Department internment camps. He was acutely aware of the importance of recording his experiences through the pen and ink drawings and watercolors he made during his incarceration in five different locations. While Hoshida did not attempt to make any overt commentary on the interment, his drawings and sketches provide a continuous and detailed account of daily activities and his long journey from Hilo, Hawaii, to the desert of Arizona.

Inscription
Written in black ink on left image, bottom right corner: 10-1-42. Written in black ink to left of left image (In Japanese and English): Kojiken Takokagun Kitaharamura / Yamamoto Fujitaro / 191 [Vernon Ave.] / Lindsay Cal / 58 sai. Written in black ink on right image, bottom right corner: 10-1-42. Written in black ink to left of right image (In Japanese and English): Yamaguchiken [unreadable] / 120 W. Broadway Tucson Ariz / [unreadable] Murata Minoru 60 sai. Written in pencil, top left corner: 150.

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org).