Seen and Unseen: New Glimpses of Japanese Incarceration
Saturday, May 6 | 11:00 AM - 11:45 AMBerkeley Public Library - Community Meeting Room
- History & Biography
- Race
Photographs are a way of documenting the world—but what if they only capture part of the story? Or what if the things they show aren’t allowed to be shared? That’s part of what Elizabeth Partridge explores in her remarkable book Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About te Japanese America Incarceration. Through stories, artwork, and illustration, Partridge and her illustrator Lauren Tamaki raise important questions about who’s allowed to tell what stories, and how; about the ways in which history is shaped and remembered; and about how those in power shape narratives to suit their own ends. These big issues are presented in a way that’s entirely suited to inform, challenge, and engage young readers, which is one of the reasons Seen and Unseen won the American Library Association’s Sibert Medal for best nonfiction book of the year. Partridge will be in conversation with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, whose picture book Love in the Library tells yet another story of Japanese incarceration—this one about her grandparents’ courtship in Minidoka. All ages.
Book signing information: Folio Books, at the venue