[PANORAMIC PHOTOGRAPH CELEBRATING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE OPENING OF THE BUDDHIST SCHOOL AT THE LOS ANGELES BRANCH OF THE HIGASHI HONGANJI TEMPLE]

Los Angeles: Japanese Photo Studio Association, [1940].. Panoramic photograph, 10 x 24¾ inches. Minor wear, vertical crease through image near the right edge. Very good. A striking panoramic photograph picturing the Japanese-American celebrants at the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Buddhist school at the Los Angeles branch of the Higashi Honganji Temple. The photograph is titled and dated in Japanese script; it relates the date of the celebration as the 13th, 14th, and 15th of September in the year 2600 (after the birth of the Emperor Jimmu), which is 1940. The photograph pictures a few hundred Issei and Nissei men, women, and children in a mixture of traditional Japanese gowns and caps, and western suits and dresses. There are a few banners in the background relating to the temple and the celebration. The Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple is still active in Los Angeles.

The celebration depicted here came just two short years before the beginning of the Japanese-American internment period, which triggered fundamental changes in the practice of the Buddhist faith in America among Japanese-American citizens. As a result of anti-Japanese sentiment in the early 1940s, Buddhists sometimes changed the names of their churches to sound more patriotic. They began to meet on Sundays to emulate Christian worship, while singing from new hymnals that echoed those found in Christian churches. Sects within the church were forced to worship together. And the swastika - a Buddhist symbol for thousands of years - was replaced by the dharma wheel.

In addition to the faith itself, Buddhists within the Japanese American community were particularly vulnerable during the internment period. The American government believed that Japanese-American Buddhists were more likely to support Imperial Japan than Japanese-American Christians or those of another faith. Sadly, this also represented the majority of Japanese Americans, since most were Buddhist in the first place. Further, the FBI classified Buddhist priests as "known dangerous Group A1 suspects" and sought them out among the first groups to be imprisoned. Many Buddhist priests were whisked away to relocation centers even before Franklin Roosevelt's issuance of Executive Order 9066.

We could locate no other copies of the present panoramic photograph in institutions or auction records. An important photographic record of a portion of the Japanese-American Buddhist community in Los Angeles just a short time before the internment period changed everything.