Consistency is not always a virtue

Top photo by Dorothea Lange. In 1942, the US government commissioned the War Relocation Authority (WRA) to oversee the roundup and incarceration of 110,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps mostly scattered in isolated areas across the western states. Actually proud of the conditions it provided for the prisoners, the WRA hired photographers, including Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, to document the camps. Lange’s caption for the top image read:

Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at [8th] and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war.

Middle and below: From 2017 protests in New York against the rounding up and deportation of immigrants. These two photos are by me, as are all images on Opposable, unless otherwise noted.

• As of June 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds 51,302 people in immigration detention in more than 155 facilities.

• Nearly 44% of detainees (around 22,400) have no criminal record—they are often held on immigration charges or enforcement status.

• Thousands of unaccompanied minors, separated from their families, are being held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sites including Ursula and Clint. Like the adults, many face severe overcrowding, extreme cold or heat, lack of bedding, dirty or infested food, poor drinking water, limited access to showers and hygiene supplies, and inadequate medical care.

If the US is as proud of its humane treatment in today’s detention facilities as it was of the Japanese American WWII camps, I am—while not in Lange’s league—nonetheless available to go and photograph them.