THE DAY AFTER — I AM AN AMERICAN, 1942

A grocery store. A declaration of belonging. A photograph taken when American citizenship was no longer enough to guarantee freedom.

Oakland, California, March 1942.

A large sign reading “I AM AN AMERICAN” hangs across the storefront of Wanto Co., a grocery store operated by a Japanese American family.

The sign was installed on December 8, 1941, the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Three months later, photographer Dorothea Lange captured the storefront, giving those words a profoundly different meaning.

THE MAN BEHIND THE SIGN

The store was operated by Tatsuro Masuda, a 25-year-old American born in California and a graduate of the University of California.

His father had established the family business decades earlier. Following Pearl Harbor, growing hostility toward Japanese Americans prompted Masuda to display a large sign affirming his national identity.

But the declaration could not protect him.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, paving the way for the forced removal of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.

In March, Masuda closed the store. He and his wife, Hatsue, moved inland to Fresno. In August 1942, they were incarcerated at the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona.

Their two children, Walter and Laverne, were born during their confinement.

The family was released in October 1944. They never returned to Oakland.

DOROTHEA LANGE — THE PHOTOGRAPH

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965), celebrated for documenting the Great Depression, was commissioned by the War Relocation Authority to photograph the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Her photographs often revealed the human consequences of government policies, even though she worked under government supervision.

Here, she photographed a storefront, a parked automobile, and a declaration of national identity.

The image contains no visible confrontation. Its power lies in the contradiction between the sign and the history unfolding around it.

Masuda insisted that he belonged to the country in which he was born. That same country would soon imprison him and his family because of their ancestry.

THE DESIGN

This black T-shirt pairs Lange's historical photograph on the front with typography inspired by American printed graphics of the 1940s on the back.

The photograph displays the original declaration:

I AM AN AMERICAN

The reverse reads:

THE DAY AFTER

Pearl Harbor · December 8, 1941

Oakland, California · Photographed March 1942

Together, the two sides tell a single story: the declaration and the historical circumstances that made it necessary.

READING FRAMES — WEARABLE ARCHIVES

Reading Frames is an independent visual-history project and YouTube channel exploring archival photography and the stories behind historical images.

Our Wearable Archives collection brings selected photographs into contemporary clothing, encouraging a closer look at the past.

Reading Frames — History, Reframed.