Oakland, CA 1942ā2026. How can looking closely at photographs change what we see, know, and feel about this history?ā
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In 1942, Japanese Americans in Oakland were photographed lining up to board busesāacross the street from what is now the Oakland Museumāthat would take them to concentration camps during World War II. ā
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Just down the street, photographer Dorothea Lange captured a Japanese American-owned grocery store with the words āI AM AN AMERICANā painted across its storefront. The storeās owner, a U.C. graduate born in California, told Lange he had the sign painted the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Just weeks later, following Executive Order 9066, he and more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, most of them U.S. citizens, were forced from their homes across the country and incarcerated because of their ancestry.ā
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Today, these photographs offer a window into moments of displacement, identity, and belonging that unfolded in the streets surrounding OMCA. In āBeHere / 1942: A...