Kori Suzuki: Project Proposal

A lot of Americans know the story of the Japanese American incarceration. What most people don’t know is the other story – the one about the 20,000 Japanese Americans who left the US to escape discrimination and seek opportunity before the war. They were in Japan in 1941 when international travel to the U.S. was cut off, and they were stranded there during World War II.

The story of the “Strandees” is about a group of people torn between the place where they were born and the nation where they grew up. It challenges the grand narrative of the heroic Japanese Americans who endured the internment and fought in the 442nd. And it tells us something about today’s conversations about anti-Asian hate and what it means to belong in America.

For this documentary photography project, I would photograph and interview a number of the surviving Strandees now living along the West Coast. I plan to spend several days with each of them and try to capture how growing up on the other side of the war has shaped their lives today. This proposal is an extension of a radio documentary I’m currently working on for an Advanced Audio class.

This story is deeply personal for me. My grandmother, born in San Francisco, grew up running from American bombs on the streets of Tokyo. She made many friends with similar stories. Now, many of them are starting to pass away.

“[It’s] the biggest unexplored episode in the history of Japanese Americans,” said Brian Niiya, content director of Densho, in an interview. “This is really a story that is in danger of being forgotten.”

One of Dorothea Lange’s great works was documenting the Japanese American internment. For this fellowship, I hope to honor her legacy by bringing to light this little-known, little-told chapter of the Japanese American story.

Kori Suzuki ’23