Picture Man: The Legacy of Southeast Alaska Photographer Shoki Kayamori

167 Pages·2015·9.66 MB·English

by  Margaret Thomas

PICTURE MAN
The Legacy of Southeast Alaska Photographer Shoki
Kayamori
MARGARET THOMAS
University of Alaska Press
© 2015 University of Alaska Press
All rights reserved
University of Alaska Press
P.O. Box 756240
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thomas, Margaret, 1959–
Picture Man : the legacy of southeast Alaska photographer Shoki Kayamori / by Margaret Thomas.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60223-245-7 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-60223-246-4 (electronic)
1. Kayamori, Shoki, 1877–1941. 2. Japanese American photographers—Alaska—Biography. 3.
Photographers—Alaska—Biography. 4. Japanese Americans—Alaska—Biography. 5. Immigrants—Alaska
—Biography. 6. Japanese Americans—Alaska—Social conditions—20th century. 7. Alaska—Race
relations—History—20th century. 8. Tlingit Indians—Alaska—Yakutat—Social life and customs—20th
century—Pictorial works. 9. Yakutat (Alaska)—Social life and customs—20th century—Pictorial works.
10. Documentary photography—Alaska—History—20th century. I. Title.
TR140.K38T46 2015
770.92—dc23
[B]
2014023690
Cover design by Martyn Schmoll
Interior design by Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc.
This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum requirements for ANSI /NISO
Z39.48—1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials).
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE
Meiji Japan
CHAPTER TWO
The West Coast
CHAPTER THREE
The Aokis
CHAPTER FOUR
Cannery Life
CHAPTER FIVE
Yakutat
CHAPTER SIX
Spies
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Kayamori Collection
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a book seems like a solitary effort. It is not.
My friend Larry Persily, then editor at the Juneau Empire, first introduced me
to Shoki Kayamori in the mid-1990s. The paper ran a weekly column called
“Juneau Color,” which spotlighted community members engaged in good works.
I guess Larry was out of ideas. He joked that mine would be the first “Juneau
Color” about a dead man. Twenty years later I sent him the first chapter of this
book. He gave me the courage to go on to the next chapter. And the next.
Some of Kayamori’s history was hidden behind a language barrier. As a high
school exchange student, I spent a year with a wonderful Japanese family, but
my grasp of the language remains rudimentary. It was my friend Mayumi
Yamamoto who unlocked the story of the photographer’s early life in Japan. A
talented researcher and translator, Mayumi quickly located the Kayamori family
in central Japan. The next time she went home to visit her own family she
interviewed the Kayamoris on my behalf. An elderly great-niece wept and
thanked her for bringing them news of a long-lost family member.
The Kayamoris cleared up confusion about the photographer’s first name.
The people in Yakutat knew him simply as Kayamori. His first name appeared in
Frederica de Laguna’s book Under Mount Saint Elias, probably based on
interviews with Yakutat residents less than a decade after his death. She
transcribed the name as Fhoki, a letter combination that does not exist in
Japanese. The Kayamoris provided a family tree that showed his first name as
Seiki. The same kanji can be read Shoki, a nickname he often used on official
documents.
Mayumi’s success motivated me to return to Alaska for another look at the
Kayamori collection, which was not yet entirely online. Serendipitously, I met
the head of Alaska State Library’s Historical Collections, Jim Simard, who has
from that day on unflinchingly supported this project. His positive comments
about the manuscript and his offer to donate some seventy images from the
collection were instrumental in the University of Alaska Press’s decision to
publish this book.
Though I have never met him, UA Press acquisitions editor James Engelhardt
can expect a hug if I ever do. He took a chance on an unpublished writer with a
half-finished manuscript and guided me through the two-year process from
inception to publication. His instincts about how to improve the text always did.
Without the two James’s backing, I could not have gotten generous grants
from King County 4Culture and the Alaska Humanities Forum, or a dozen more
Kayamori images from the Sealaska Heritage Institute. All of these built the
momentum necessary to convince South Puget Sound Community College to
give me a paid sabbatical to finish the book.
Support from strangers is always surprising and gratifying, but my mother
Hilda Merrick’s interest in this project and the improvements she made to
portions of the text will always matter most to me. Thanks, Mom.
Finally, writing a book is for long stretches a solitary effort. One thing that
helped me stay at the desk was knowing that my sweet, cheerful husband would
be home at the end of each day. A more gifted writer than I, Ralph read the
manuscript and saved me the embarrassment of typos and other errors. He
celebrated with me many minute milestones, and sent a bouquet when the
publisher finally officially approved this project. The card read, “Your
persistence is inspiring.” His love and unwavering support made that possible—
even fun.
Note: Only those photographs from the Alaska State Library Historical
Collection and from the Sealaska Heritage Institute (tagged with a (K)
throughout this book) were taken by Shoki Kayamori. The four images where he
is pictured presumably were taken with a self-timer or by someone else using his
camera.