I usually don't do this in relation to anything I consign to Bruce's auctions - but ever since I agreed to be named as the consignor / former owner of the aforementioned poster - I've gotten several personal messages about it. Vintage originals from 1942 are extremely difficult to find - probably for good reason - and are mostly only available in repro sizes printed on paper - vs. originals like mine which were printed on heavy 14x22 card stock.
I was actually a little surprised that Bruce agreed to put this into his major sale - because while I thought it was a rare museum piece - I felt it had low value because of what it represents. It's not a Tiffany's poster - but it is history. He asked if he could name me as consignor and add details about my personal connection to it - and I said no problem. I told one fellow that I thought my obscure poster could be had for under $100 - because that's about what I paid for it many years ago from a book seller. I told him I didn't think my poster would ever be as desired as a war poster by Norman Rockwell or Howard Christy Chandler. However, after Bruce's sale began - (which closes tomorrow Sunday at 1pm Central Time) - a rare book dealer surfaced on eBay asking $2500 to $5800 for his originals - all, in my view, in lesser condition. I don't consider my poster worth that, but what do I know? If you're curious about the eBay ones, they're item 384512692484 and 324896907576. Bruce's sale is here - and compared to what's on eBay, it's more affordable and in superior condition - followed by what my poster looked like in the frame after I took it down from my wall: http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858 [https://www.emovieposter.com/images/moviestars/AA220327/550/war_instructions_to_all_persons_of_japanese_ancestry_a_WC34242_B.jpg]<http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858> 2a0425 INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY 14x22 WWII war poster 1942 about internment!<http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858> This auction item is offered online by eMoviePoster.com. Please visit the website to view a complete listing description. auctions.emovieposter.com [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/4844/nSUXv7.jpg] Some background about what this poster meant to me: My poster had darkly sentimental value because my stepmother - along with ALL of my Japanese-American relatives living in California and Washington - all with full U.S. citizenship like me and literate in English - were interned in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor from 1942-1945. It's not the kind of poster most people want because of its content - and - because of it's stark black and white text. Very few survive. And because I didn't want my poster to represent a personal statement of bitterness from me for visitors - I never displayed it downstairs as a conversation piece. For years, it hung upstairs facing a dead wall. I'd walk by it many times without looking at it. But sometimes I'd stop and read all of the details that U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were allowed to bring or not bring - before being ordered onto buses or trains - taking them to quickly built internment camps located inland in very remote areas. Unlike my relatives in California and Washington - my Dad and uncles and aunts who lived inland - escaped the camps - (they lived in Montana). My Dad said he was subjected to garden variety discrimination occurring during a very patriotic time, but my Dad also said that some of the hate against him - ratcheted down a few notches when he spoke flawless English. (He still got subjected to "late hits" on the football field, though. And afterwards, he'd say that opposing players would shake his hand and say, "Good game.") However, my older uncle Tedeo "Ted" Kusumoto - decided to enlist in the Army to fight Nazis in Italy - and he came back with a Silver Star (442nd regiment, a unit that was honored in the 1951 Van Johnson movie, "Go for Broke!"). [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/9908/Kbh070.jpg] ---- There were 10 internment camps - (called "relocation centers") - and they were scattered in California, Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Arkansas - housing more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry. German-Americans and Italian-Americans mostly escaped these camps - but those who didn't - were incarcerated on U.S. Army bases or Department of Justice facilities in 15 states. (Personal opinion: Because the vast majority of these detainees were U.S. citizens who should have otherwise been afforded the protections of citizenship - I do NOT consider what happened to them during WWII - to be analogous to present-day migrants at the border who are not U.S. citizens. It was a black eye for America but you know, my Japanese-American stepmother got a $25K check in 1988 - ($61K in today's dollars) - after Reagan signed that reparations bill for survivors. These reparations and formal apology from America - were for people who LIVED in those camps who were STILL ALIVE more than 40 years later. They were NOT for "surviving descendants" like me who were never incarcerated by the government. I've got no beef with that. The people who did this are now dead.) Even though the camps were built with barbed wire and guns on corner towers - very few people died in those camps. It was a personal liberties issue. They were NOT the torture and death factories in Japan and Germany during WWII - where prisoner survival rates were low. The internment camps were cold and harsh - but survival rates were high. No one in the Japanese internment camps in the U.S. was sent to a the "cooler" like Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Map_of_World_War_II_Japanese_American_internment_camps.png]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans> Internment of Japanese Americans - Wikipedia<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans> In the 1930s, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), concerned as a result of Imperial Japan's rising military power in Asia, began to conduct surveillance in Japanese-American communities in Hawaii. Starting in 1936, at the behest of President Roosevelt, the ONI began to compile a "special list of those Japanese Americans who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the ... en.wikipedia.org ----- JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT ORDER (May 5, 1942) - original unrestored 14 x 22 UNFOLDED poster on heavy card stock, very good to fine condition with some age toning and minor wear to top edge including upper left corner of back which bleeds through to the front's upper right corner. Never backed nor folded since issued in 1942. Provenance: David Kusumoto collection. Vintage ORIGINAL Japanese internment evacuation notice, San Francisco, May 1942, Civilian Exclusion Order No. 41 ordered by U.S. Army Lt. General J. L. DeWitt - and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt via Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor - which led to the incarceration of 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the Pacific coast states of California, Washington and Oregon. (Canada issued similar orders for British Columbia.) Difficult to find in any condition. (Repros exist in smaller sizes.) http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858 [https://www.emovieposter.com/images/moviestars/AA220327/550/war_instructions_to_all_persons_of_japanese_ancestry_a_WC34242_B.jpg]<http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858> 2a0425 INSTRUCTIONS TO ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY 14x22 WWII war poster 1942 about internment!<http://auctions.emovieposter.com/Bidding.taf?_function=detail&Auction_uid1=6222858> This auction item is offered online by eMoviePoster.com. Please visit the website to view a complete listing description. auctions.emovieposter.com How it looked before I took it out of its frame: [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/4844/nSUXv7.jpg] Front without frame: [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/3666/QDhXvA.jpg] Back without frame: [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/1553/pmG9mW.jpg] At any rate, that's all. Hope this was mildly informative to those who were interested. -d. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
