Ryan White: Through the Lens of Taro Yamasaki

The following is a guest post by Adam M. Silvia, Curator of Photography in the Prints & Photographs Division.

On August 18th, 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act, which allocated federal funds to support the treatment of AIDS.  To commemorate the 34th anniversary of this legislation and celebrate its positive impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people each year, we asked Pulitzer Prize-winner Taro Yamasaki to reflect on his influential photographs of Ryan White, recently acquired by the Library of Congress.

“I hadn’t met or photographed anyone with AIDS, though I was reading everything I could find about it,” begins Yamasaki, who arrived at Ryan’s new home in Cicero, Indiana in the summer of 1987 with reporter Bill Shaw. Both freelancers, they were hired by People magazine to help with a special feature on living with AIDS. Ryan, then 15 years old, was born with hemophilia and contracted AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion.

“It was very hot and humid,” Yamasaki recalls, yet inside, “every window was closed with no air conditioning.” They found Ryan in dire condition, sitting on the couch, wearing his jacket, a blanket and woolly slippers, with his dog, Wally, lying at his feet. “I didn’t take my cameras out until he seemed comfortable,” states Yamasaki, who sensed Ryan’s uncertainty due to intense media coverage in the past several years. “Every once in a while, [Ryan] would get up, go to the stove and heat his hands over the [burner].”

Ryan, his mother, Jeanne, and sister, Andrea, had recently moved to Cicero from nearby Kokomo, where the family was harassed and threatened by townsfolk who feared Ryan’s illness. Upon hearing Ryan’s story, British singer and pianist Elton John loaned Jeanne money for the downpayment to buy the home in Cicero. That evening, Yamasaki photographed Jeanne in Ryan’s new bedroom, kneeling beside his bed, holding his hand before nightly prayer. “There were still packing boxes in Ryan’s room from the recent move.”

Ryan wasn’t expected to survive the winter, hence Yamasaki, upon returning in spring, was surprised to see him not only alive but thriving. Educated about AIDS, the community embraced Ryan, lifting his spirits and, miraculously, his condition. “I photographed these wonderful moments,” says Yamasaki, “like kids coming over and wanting a Ryan White hairdo.” At school, “kids were gathering around his locker to talk to him.”

In the pages of People and through other media outlets, Ryan became an ambassador of sorts, inspiring compassion for the victims of AIDS. “I did quite a bit of traveling with Ryan,” notes Yamasaki, who photographed Ryan in Omaha, Nebraska, “smiling and laughing,” surrounded by reporters while accepting the key to the city.

Come the fall of 1989, however, Ryan’s health deteriorated. Yamasaki photographed Ryan once again wearing his jacket, holding his cold hand up to his mother’s cheek. Still, his resolve was unwavering. While accompanying Ryan to see Doctor Martin Kleiman, “Kleiman asked me to step out of the room,” Yamasaki recalls, “but Ryan said, ‘Please stay, Taro. I want people to see what AIDS looks like.”

“I knew things weren’t looking good,” states Yamasaki. Still, “it came as a shock” when Jeanne called. “Ryan’s in a coma at Riley Hospital,” she said. “Can you come as soon as possible?”

Yamasaki remembers flying to Indianapolis “under a dark cloud.” He met Shaw at the hospital, and they were the only journalists permitted into the intensive care unit. “Jeanne asked me not to photograph Ryan’s very swollen face,” says Yamasaki, who instead observed the devotion of Dr. Kleiman, the hospital staff and family and friends who stayed by Ryan’s side.

“Elton John [now a close friend of the family] was there every second I was there,” explains Yamasaki. “He was comforting the family” and “going through the mail, sorting it.” Ryan was receiving words of kindness from every corner of the country and from abroad. Elton taped these messages up in Ryan’s room. “Ryan never saw them,” Yamasaki acknowledges, “but Elton and Jeanne thought it was important to surround him with this love from the world.”

When Ryan passed away, his family and friends gathered in a circle for prayer. “They held hands, and Jeanne said, ‘You can photograph this or you can join the circle, Taro.’ I put my camera down and joined the circle, knowing full well that my editors would have wanted that picture.”

At the funeral, Yamasaki took one of his greatest photographs, capturing the power of Ryan’s story. “The editors had laid out the story, leaving room for one funeral picture. [They] wanted a picture of [First Lady] Barbara Bush, sitting in the pew behind Jeanne and Andrea,” says Yamasaki. “I told them, Elton [playing Skyline Pigeon] would be a much more meaningful picture.” Jeanne agreed, so Yamasaki, with Elton’s permission, hid behind the piano. “In the middle of the song, I stood up, hoping my hands weren’t shaking too much to get a sharp picture.” It was the perfect photograph.

Ryan was one of many children in peril whose story was told through Yamasaki’s photographs. Yamasaki had already photographed children wounded from conflict in Nicaragua, and he would go on to photograph the impact of conflicts on children in Bosnia, Rwanda and the Middle East. “It just seemed unfair and also cruel,” states Yamasaki, looking back on everything. “As a photojournalist, I have always thought of my job as that of an educator, really. I feel like these stories are important for people to see.”

The Prints & Photographs Division wishes to thank Taro Yamasaki for his time and the Photography Collections Preservation Project for introducing us. We invite you to explore three new collections by Yamasaki at the Library of Congress: Ryan White and the Battle Against AIDS, Children in Peril and Escaping Human Trafficking. You can view them in the Prints & Photograph Reading Room by contacting us to make an appointment.

Learn More:

• Explore the Congressional Quarterly & Roll Call Photograph Collections to find descriptions of additional photographs related to the AIDS pandemic, which you can view onsite in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room.
• Find more descriptions of photographs of the AIDS pandemic by searching the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog for the following creators: JEB (Joan E. Biren), Laurie Costa, Robert Giard, Bernard Gotfryd, Frank Fournier, Billy Howard, William Klein, Tracey Litt, Constantine Manos, Ann Meredith, Ellen Neipris, Diane Neumaier, Nicholas Nixon, Alon Reininger, Linda Troeller and Brian Weil. We encourage you to contact us to make an appointment to see the photographs in person.
• Search the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog for posters related to the AIDS pandemic, which can be viewed in person by appointment.
• Read about the impact of AIDS on the library community on the Folklife Today blog.