the rest of us might not.

Today's guest uses the camera to tell stories about cultural identity and intergenerational trauma.

She's Haruka Sakaguchi, this week on "Story in the Public Square."

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) Hello and welcome to a "Story in the Public Square," where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, also with Salve's Pell Center.

- Our guest this week is Haruka Sakaguchi, a documentary photographer born in Japan, but now coming to us today from New Jersey.

Haruka, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- You know, we wanna talk to you about your work, but we thought it would be interesting to know a little bit too about your background.

I mentioned you were born in Japan, you moved to the United States as an infant.

What was it like growing up as an immigrant in the United States?

- So, yeah, growing up as an immigrant in the United States, both of my parents, including myself, were first-generation Japanese.

So I think, for the most part of my life, I've always kind of had to negotiate multiple cultural identities and multiple languages.

And I think that had kind of culminated into my interest in cultural identity, and also how these cultural identities are interpreted across different generations, which is what informs a lot of the work that I do today.

- And we're gonna get to that work in particular, but why then documentary photography as the medium to explore those issues?

- Yep, so straight out of high school, I had an interest in social work actually.

So I had these aspirations to become a social worker.

I was volunteering at this organization that conducted these independent assessments for parents with histories of mental health and substance abuse issues, who are working with local authorities to regain custody of their children.

And I spent a lot of time working, with mothers mostly, who were in recovery and they were kind of reuniting with their children for the first time in years, for some.

And I was assisting them with these kind of day-to-day tasks like cooking and buying groceries for their children, but also these bonding activities like reading and playing with their children.

But as fulfilling as it was, it was really emotionally taxing.

(chuckles) And I quickly learned that I didn't really have the mental resilience it took to work in this field, in social work.

So then I decided to go back to school actually, and to study journalism.

I wrote for my college newspaper.

I had these aspirations to become a reporter.

But through the, you know, the reporting that I did for this newspaper, I quickly learned that I was too shy and kind of deferential to become an investigative reporter.

(all chuckling) - But while I was kind of plugging through these stories, I made my first portrait of a student on campus that I was profiling.

And I felt this kind of instant alignment.

And even though it took me several more years to kind of pursue this professionally, I think, through my interest in social work and journalism, I was always interested in kind of engaging with the public somehow.

But it took me a while to kind of find the right medium and the right language to do it in a meaningful way.

So photography just happened to be the right vehicle for my interest in engaging, and possibly and hopefully serving the public in some way.

- So your work falls into several general themes and we're gonna get into two of them.

Cultural identity is a big theme of your work and typecastproject.com has much of that imagery there.

Tell us about typecastproject.com and then we'll get into some of the photographs.

- Yeah, absolutely.

"Typecast" is a satirical portrait series that I was working on with my colleague, Griselda San Martin, who is a fellow photojournalist.

It's a portrait series that depicts cultural typecasting practices in the film and entertainment industry, that I worked on from 2018 to 2019.

So what my colleague, Griselda, and I did, we made these staged portraits where we asked ethnic minority actors in New York and LA, to kind of embody the culturally stereotypical roles that they often get typecast in, that they get a lot of these audition calls for.

And we made these kind of staged portraits of them.

And then we also asked them to embody the roles that they wish to be cast, and their ideal roles, their wish roles, and asked them to, again, embody these roles and made staged portraits of them as well.

So it's presented as a diptych where you have a typecast role and an ideal role.

- So there certainly is a satirical element but there's also truth in these photographs as well.

And as I said, we'll get into them in a second.

I have another question.

How did you find these actors?

I mean, you found a whole lot of them and they're really good.

- So initially, because Griselda and I are both based in New York City, we were going through personal networks and we were trying to connect with people of color actors that way.

But actually our first photo shoot was with an actor that we connected with over Craigslist.

(all chuckling) We kinda wanted to cast a wide net to make sure that we weren't just kind of going through people that we knew.

We both have kinda nominal connections in the film industry, but we were just kind of curious about connecting with people that we may not have had a lot of intersection with.

So the first portrait that we made was actually with Dan Chen, who's a Taiwanese American actor, who again, we just connected with over Craigslist.

And we showed up at his house in Montclair, New Jersey, the next week, and made some portraits of him.

- Haruka, one of the things that strikes me about this project, is that you are really telling a story as much as you are documenting anything.

And Wayne mentioned the satirical element in this.

How do you crumb up with an idea like that?

Where does that spark of creativity and creation come from?

- Yeah.

So Griselda and I both come from journalistic backgrounds.

Griselda's an incredible photojournalist who's been working on issues of family separation at the US-Mexico border.

I had been working on a project with atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at that time.

So we both connected over a glass of wine one night and we were both talking about how, you know, like we were wondering how sustainable this work was, you know?

It can be quite taxing to be working on topics like this for a long time.

And yeah, Griselda was talking, just kind of casually talking about a film festival that she had attended, and she had connected with a Mexican-American actress there who was talking about, you know, all the ridiculously culturally stereotypical roles that she had to audition for, to kind of get to the place that she is today.

And we were both talking about this and wondering, you know, what if there is a way for us to both step out of our kind of journalistic mediums and kind of come up with a more conceptual approach, but still something that engages with this issue in a meaningful way?

And it's interesting, this "Typecast" project also went through its own evolution as well.

So I think, because both of us had this journalistic background, we were initially interested in just photographing the actors embodying their stereotypical roles.

But we had asked them to kind of showcase all the wardrobe pieces and the props that they had accumulated over the years throughout their acting career, to show up at these taping auditions.

And some actors, you know, really do like to come in costume and use props to really kind of enhance their performance, right?

So we had asked them to keep these objects and we were making environmental portraits, so a little wider portraits, of them embodying their roles in their own homes surrounded by the props that they had accumulated.

And we were hoping that this could communicate, you know, kind of multiple layers to the story.

It's not just about the roles that they're typecast in, but also the props that they had accumulated and also kind of their living situations, to portray that, you know, these aren't roles that they're just, you know, taking because they want to, it's part of how they make a living.

But then as the process and as the story evolved and as we continued to work with actors, we decided that instead of spending the energy kind of making these environmental, kind of like these prescriptive informative portraits, we wanted to focus more on the wish roles and kind of giving more time and space for the audience to look at the stereotypical roles and the ideal roles, and kind of experience the gap between those two images.

- So let's get into Dan Chen, you mentioned Dan Chen.

Tell us about Dan and what we're seeing now?

- Yep, so Dan is, like I said, he was the first actor that had sat for a portrait with us for this project.

He's a Taiwanese American actor, and his stereotypical role is doctor and his ideal role is "Captain America."

So, like I said, our initial idea was to just photograph the portraits of the actors in their stereotypical roles only.

But when we went over to Dan's house in New Jersey, you know, we had this kind of suitcase full of gear.

We were really determined to make the stereotypical portrait of him.

And this was also back when we still had the idea of having the props kind of laid out in front of him.

So we had to ask Dan to prepare a bunch of scrubs, a few stethoscopes, and kind of even this fake ID that he used to bring to casting auditions, to really embody his stereotypical role as a doctor.

But while we were photographing with Dan in his living room, we saw a kind of display showcase with a military uniform on it in the corner of his room.

And we had asked, you know, "What is the military uniform doing in the corner of your room?"

And he had shared that it was his uniform from when he was in the US military.

And then kind of remarked, he said, "You know, it would be cool to play a sergeant one day, or like even something like 'Captain America' one day."

So we were floored by the statement, you know, and that happened right around the time when Griselda and I were both like putting on this really cheap lab coat on Dan and asking him to, again, pose for this doctor role.

And we were like, you know, this just doesn't feel right anymore.

So we immediately kind of took out our reporting pads and we started asking him, interviewing Dan about his background in the military and about the ideal roles that he would like to embody.

And "Captain America" was one of them.

So we had booked a follow-up shoot with him to photograph him in his ideal role as "Captain America."

- So tell us about Lolia Etomi who identifies as Nigerian.

- Yep, so Lolia is a Nigerian actress who we met in Los Angeles.

We ended up in Los Angeles because we had partnered with Photoville, who had kindly offered us an exhibition space in the inaugural Photoville LA Festival.

And not only did they offer us an exhibition space, but they also offered us a tent for us to be able to recruit and photograph ethnic minority actors in the LA area.

So they had kindly helped us publish a recruitment post in a local publication, and there were about 15 actors who had showed up to this tent, this, you know, very small tent with a makeshift photo studio set up.

And yeah, Lolia was one of the first actors that we had photographed in LA, due to Photoville's generosity.

And this kind of put us on the map for connecting with other actors in Los Angeles, to, again, embody their stereotypical and ideal roles for us.

- And what were her stereotypical and ideal roles?

- Yeah, so Lolia's typecast role is a sex worker and her ideal role is Serena Williams.

- Hey, so you mentioned the work that you were doing documenting the intergenerational trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That's the "1945" project.

Can you tell us a little bit about it?

- Yeah, so the "1945" project is a portrait series of atomic bomb survivors, or hibakusha in Japanese, who were inflicted by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It was a project that I worked on from 2016 to 2017.

And I had the opportunity to interview and photograph over 50 hibakusha and their descendants.

- And you mentioned the emotional toll that that kind of work takes.

Can you just elaborate a little bit on that?

How does that affect you in photographing and meeting these people and hearing their stories?

- Yeah.

I will always remember the first interview that I was willing to have with a atomic bomb survivor.

His name is Yoshiro Yamawaki.

Who he was telling me this very, you know, descriptive firsthand account of losing his father to the atomic bomb, and having to cremate his father along with his brothers at a very tender age.

He was 11 years old.

And none of his brothers were older than 16 at this time.

And as he was relaying the story, I could just tell, it wasn't just the content of the account that he was telling me about, but just the precision and how, I could just tell that he had really had to revisit this memory over and over again to articulate it in the way that he was presenting it to me.

And I just couldn't help but think about how painful it must be to revisit that so many times for me to have the privilege to be able to hear this story, that I just started breaking down and crying.

And it was a kind of a worst case scenario for me, here I'm trying to put up this kind of professional demeanor.

And as a result, I had, you know, a hibakusha who was comforting me at the end of the interview.

And I was like, oh, this is not going well at all.

But yeah, that was how my first interview went.

And after, you know, speaking with, again, the hibakusha and their descendants over the year, I started to realize that it was...

I think as a journalist, I wanted to make sure that I took time in between these interviews.

Not to prevent myself from breaking down and crying again, but to give myself the space to prepare for the next interview so that I'm not approaching it with my own kind of defense mechanisms, or feeling like I have to put up a wall to kind of maintain this professional demeanor that I can kind of approach these interviews with a much softer approach.

But also, while being able to conduct the interviews in a professional way.

- So another person you photographed as part of the "1945" project, was Shizuko Mitamura.

Tell us about her.

- Yep, so Shizuko Mitamura, she was only three years old at the time of the bombing, and she only began to share her story as a hibakusha after the death of her daughter, Miwa, who was only 39 years old when she died of cancer.

And that, coincidentally, was around the same time that Ms. Mitamura herself was diagnosed with colon cancer.

But by the time, Miwa, her daughter, had shared with her about her cancer diagnosis, it was too late and she had passed away a few months later.

And what I felt compelling about Ms. Mitamura's story is that, you know, like I shared with you, she was diagnosed with colon cancer when she was 39, she was diagnosed with cancer again at age 59.

Ms. Mitamura's second oldest sister was diagnosed with colon cancer twice.

Her third oldest sister was diagnosed with rectal cancer and passed away at age 39.

So these are all members of her household who were exposed to the atomic bomb.

So I think there's a lot of focus on the individuals that died from the initial blast, but Ms. Mitamura's story really illustrates the aftermath of the bomb.

Many, many years, up to decades, after the bombing.

And it also kind of encapsulates the intergenerational nature of the impact of the bomb, because Ms. Mitamura's sister's daughters have also passed away in their 30s to 40s due to cancer, and one of them with a brain tumor.

But yeah, Ms. Mitamura's story is especially compelling, because she kind of suspects that her daughter had refused to share with her about her cancer diagnosis, because she knew deep down inside that it was because she was a descendant of Ms. Mitamura, as a hibakusha.

And she wanted to kinda relieve her mother from the guilt that she thought her mother would inevitably feel after she hears about her cancer diagnosis.

And yeah, Ms. Mitamura is one of many hibakusha who had dealt with, not only their own kind of physical ailments, but also physical ailments of their children and their grandchildren as well.

And having to kinda negotiate that as the years went by after the bombing.

- So in sharing these stories, was there any healing element to the people you photographed?

I don't know if they were sharing them for the first time ever, or had shared before, but was there any therapeutic value to them, do you think?

Did you get that sense?

Did they tell you that?

- I certainly hope so.

I think there is a catharsis in, you know, sharing your story for the first time.

Like I shared with Ms. Mitamura, you know, she did not speak about her experience until the death of her daughter.

And there were actually many hibakusha who did not share their stories until they were either retired or their children were gainfully employed or married.

For fear that, you know, coming out with their stories of being a hibakusha would then identify them and their families as a hibakusha, or their descendants, and it could lead to discrimination.

You know, they were afraid that if they came out with their stories as a hibakusha, then their children, maybe their son, wouldn't be able to get hired by a firm because there were fears that, you know, he may have, as a second generation hibakusha, that he may have issues or medical conditions as well.

Or if your daughter is identified as a descendant of hibakusha, then it may be difficult to find a marriage partner because of these beliefs that there are genetic traits that can be passed down through radiation sickness.

So I think, I'm not sure if retelling these stories or, you know, my particular interview or my being able to photograph them, had led to a catharsis on their end, but I think everyone who came out with their stories went through their own journeys and their own evolution to come to this point where they were finally comfortable enough to share their stories with the rest of the world.

- Haruka, we've got about two and a half minutes left.

I wanna ask you though, about a work that's very much in progress, and it's called "Campu: An American Story."

What is that project?

- Yeah, so "Campu" is a project that I'm currently working on.

It's an educational website about the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

I have been attending annual pilgrimages that I actually did not know about until I started research for this project, that former incarcerees of the 10 WRA concentration camps across the US, have been revisiting the sites where they or their family were incarcerated, in the form of pilgrimages.

And they have been kind of conducting these activities where they come together as a community and they are there to honor their ancestors, or kind of reflect on their own experiences of being incarcerated in these camps.

And similar to my "1945" project, "Campu," which is Japanese for camp, it documents both survivors and their descendants of this event.

And much like 1945, many survivors of these American concentration camps, they don't share their experiences with their descendants for fear of kind of further stigmatizing them and kind of reminding them of the discrimination that their ancestors had faced, and potentially kind of instilling this thought that they're outsiders in the United States.

So, yeah, my goal for this project is similar to "1945," to kind of acknowledge the intergenerational nature of the incarceration of Japanese-Americans.

And so similar in, also, in format to "1945," I've been asking the survivors and descendants to write a letter.

For the "1945" project, it was a broader topic of asking them to write a letter addressing future generations.

But for "Campu," in particular, I've been asking survivors to write a letter to their younger self when they were incarcerated, and to descendants to write a letter to a survivor and their family.

- That's a powerful and important project.

Haruka Sakaguchi, that's all the time we have this week.

Thank you so much for being with us.

That is all the time, but if you wanna know more about "Story in the Public Square," you can find us on social media or visit pellcenter.org where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes, asking you to join us again next time for more "Story in the Public Square."

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)