Aerial perspective of crowd boarding buses in front of Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, Los Angeles.
A historic photograph by Jack Iwata depicting two white buses and a crowd of people saying goodbyes outside the Los Angeles Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple has long stood as an icon of the forced removal of Japanese Americans from Little Tokyo in 1942. The site it depicts later became the original location of the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), which now holds the photo in its collection.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the symposium “Two Buses Set Out: Japanese American Photography, History, and Memory” will explore new research about the photograph and its connection to Japanese American history. Co-presented by JANM and the Yanai Initiative at UCLA, the symposium will take place at JANM, 100 N. Central Ave. in Little Tokyo.
Tickets are $10 ($5 for seniors, free for students and JANM members) and are available online at janm.org/events.
The program brings together scholars and experts in public history and photography to present a new interpretation of this iconic image, examine how its earlier interpretation took shape, and explore the complex ways in which photography, history, and memory intersect.
Through this discussion, the symposium invites us to consider how photographs acquire historical meaning, how that meaning is transmitted over time, and how new interpretations can reshape our understanding of the past.
Ann Burroughs, director and CEO of JANM, and Michael Emmerich, director of the Yanai Initiative and Tadashi Yanai Professor of Japanese Literature at UCLA, will welcome a distinguished group of speakers to include:
Emily Anderson, independent scholar and curator;
Benjamin Cawthra, professor of history at CSU Fullerton;
Artist Masaki Fujihata;
James A. Ganz, senior curator of photographs at The Getty Museum;
Clement Hanami, vice president of exhibitions and art director at JANM;
Kristen Hayashi, director of collections management and access and curator of history at JANM;
Masako Miki, director of external relations at JANM;
Yoshiyuki Yamada, vice director, NYK Maritime Museum, Yokohama.
Jack Iwata (1912-1992) was a photographer at the famous Toyo Miyatake studio in Los Angeles and also photographed events for The Rafu Shimpo. His photographs chronicle the events leading up to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and, later, life in the Manzanar and Tule Lake concentration camps.
The Hompa Hongwanji Temple photograph is one of more than 500 photographs and copy negatives by Iwata in JANM’s collection, a gift of Jack and Peggy Iwata. New research about the photograph informs its entry in JANM’s new core exhibition, “In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Forging Democracy,” which will open Jan. 23, 2027.