Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Archie Miyatake Interview
Narrator: Archie Miyatake
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: August 31 & September 1, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-marchie-02-0017

AM: Okay, it was about three or four months after we, we were put into Manzanar and I was playing with some friends outside, and then all of a sudden my father told me to go inside the apartment, so I thought I did something wrong, he was gonna bawl me out. So I went in the apartment and he told me to sit down. He says, "I got to show you something." So he went to his suitcase and took out some lenses and some film holders and put it on the table. I was wondering what he was gonna do with that. Then he says, "As a photographer, I have a responsibility." I didn't know what he was talking about. And he says, "Well, you know, I have to take all the pictures in Manzanar so to keep a record of what's going on here, so this kind of thing will never happen again." That was his responsibility, to record the camp life. So he says, "I'm going to have a camera made with this, for this lens and I have this film holder so I could get some film and put it in there." And so he proceeded to have a camera made.

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