In 1942, Bill Manbo and his family were forced from their Hollywood home into the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, a Japanese American internment camp in Wyoming. While there, Manbo documented both the bleakness and beauty of his surroundings using Kodachrome film—a technology then just seven years old—to capture community celebrations and to record his family’s struggle to maintain a normal life under the harsh conditions of racial imprisonment. "Colors of Confinement", a new book from the Center for Documentary Studies and the University of North Carolina Press, showcases sixty-five stunning images from this extremely rare collection of color photographs, presented along with three interpretive essays by leading scholars and a reflective, personal essay by a former Heart Mountain internee.
Editor Eric L. Muller sat down with Center for Documentary Studies Communications Intern Matt Philips to talk about the book and his impression of the images.
For more information: documentarystudies.duke.edu/books/new-releases/colors-of-confinement-rare-kodachrome-photographs-of-japanese-american-incarceration-in-world-war-ii
Video by Joel Mora
Interview by Matt Phillips
Song: "Texas Sky" by Val Davis