Saturday, October 7, 2023
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Cost: FREE (with paid museum admission)
Tickets are available on the day of the event on a first-come, first-served basis. Limited seating available
Location: Morikami Theater
Photographer and videographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. has traveled the world covering natural and human-caused disasters, documenting the lives of everyday Iraqis living under Saddam Hussein, Mexico City residents digging out of a deadly earthquake, Asian factory workers laboring for pennies to produce high-end athletic shoes for the U.S. and international athletes competing for gold at ten different Olympic Games. Paul writes:
“In the late 1970s, as I started on my path as a photographer, I learned from my uncle, San Francisco artist Nobuo Kitagaki, that (famous American photographer) Dorothea Lange had photographed my grandparents, father and aunt in 1942 as they waited for a bus in Oakland, California, to begin their journey into detention. Several years later, while looking through over 900 of Lange’s photographs at the National Archives in Washington D.C., I found her original images of my family.”
“In 2005, I began searching for the identities of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans whose images of forced relocation were captured by Lange and the other War Relocation Authority photographers, including Clem Albers, Tom Parker and Francis Stewart. It’s a complicated and difficult task, as most of the photographs did not identify incarcerated subjects. During the past 18 years, I’ve photographed over 60 of the original subjects, or their direct descendants, living in California, Oregon, Washington, Missouri, Texas and New Jersey.”
