Toyo Miyatake Studio / Rafu Shimpo Collection

(96.267) This online collection is a selection from over 9,500 negatives and photographs taken by the photographers of the Toyo Miyatake Studio for the Los Angeles-based Rafu Shimpo, one of the oldest and most widely read Japanese American newspapers in the country, documents Los Angeles' Japanese American community from 1950 to 1988.

The collection features one-of-a-kind images, featuring community events, political candidates and movements, religious institutions, sporting events, theater and musical performances, business openings and closings, visiting dignitaries and celebrities, local education, and day to day life throughout Los Angeles and serves to document a remarkable period of Los Angeles history, including, in particular, the rebirth and transformation after World War II of Los Angeles' Japanese American community as families returned to the area and rebuilt their shattered lives after incarceration in wartime concentration camps.