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Manuscripts

Sunao Imoto

Description

Photo album titled "Abroad with My Camera and Me" of family friend Sunao Imoto's travels to Japan via San Francisco and Hawaii onboard the Kamakura Maru with Sumi Sakai, departing April 8, 1940. Snapshots document shipboard activities, a lengthy stay of study in Tokyo, and tourist and family visits to Kyoto, rural Southern Japan, and Manchukuo (Manchuria); Imoto's travels around Japan appear to be without Sumi Sakai. Album was created as a gift to Walter and Galetta Van Valkenburgh in December 1941 and contains extensive captions and commentary, including observations on the lives of Japanese women, both urban and rural. Several snapshots depict Imoto's return trip onboard the Montevideo Maru with its mostly European refugee passengers, arriving in Los Angeles on June 11, 1941.

Sumi Sakai photo album, 1920s to 1941, also includes snapshots of the same journey to Japan, including Kamakura Maru shipboard images.

Also present is a loose War Relocation Authority publicity photo of Sunao Imoto working as a secretary for poet Carl Sandburg following her release from the Poston War Relocation Center, dated May 1944.

Type
Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date
1940-1941
Call number
mssSK
Provenance
Gift of Kozawa Family Trust, February 2020.
Restrictions
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.
RESTRICTED: Box 48: housed in cold storage; extended retrieval and delivery time required.
Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.
Associated people
Kawakami (Family),
Kozawa (Family),
Sakai (Family),
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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