Sumiko Kobayashi Tanforan Assembly Center pencil sketches, 1942-1943
Permanent ID:
11664Date:
1942 – 1943Image Description:
Pencil sketches by Sumiko Kobayashi, incarcerated at Topaz War Relocation Center in Topaz, Utah. The drawings show the landscape and architecture of the internment camp, including the barracks, basketball courts, pond, and watchtower. Images 1 and 2, dated from 1942, show Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, California, a former racetrack, where incarcerated Japanese-Americans were held before they were assigned to long-term internment camps. The Kobayashi family was first brought there after being forcibly removed from their home in San Leandro, California. Sumiko was 19.Kobayashi's drawings are particularly significant because cameras were prohibited from use by Japanese-Americans incarcerated in the internment camps (although some already successful photographers smuggled cameras inside, like Toyo Miyatake). Kobayashi's drawings stand as some of the few images of the camps made by a young person.