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Sunday,
May 6, 2012
 We’re
saddened to learn of the passing on April 26 of Gloria Kubota. Gloria
was one of the most delightful people you'd ever want to meet, and
she embodied the female perspective on the resistance of the Fair
Play Committee documented in our film.
Gloira
reminded us of the particular worries that forced expulsion heaped
upon mothers like her, like having to bring canned milk and food for
her young daughter on the long train ride to an American concentration
camp in Wyoming. Once in camp, she was one of the few women to brave
the scorn of other Nisei mothers by hosting her husband's meetings
of the nascent Fair Play Committee, and typing their bulletins onto
mimeograph stencils. Gloria tells a funny story about her struggle
with typing in an extended interview on Disc Two of our new DVD. You
can read more about Gloria in her biography on our PBS.org
site, and in the San
Jose Mercury-News obit. After we finished the film Gloria stayed
in touch, bringing my family fruit from her orchard in Saratoga. Our
condolences to her extended family. She will be dearly missed.
Monday,
April 23, 2012
Please join us on Saturday, May 12, for the California
debut of the new Two-Disc Collector’s Edition DVD of Conscience
and the Constitution. Producer Frank Abe will screen the film and
debut a new DVD featurette, “The JACL Apologizes.” Q&A
with the filmmaker and DVD signing will follow the screening in theTateuchi
Democracy Forum. Admission is free to the museum and the screening,
thanks to the "Target Free Family Day" in celebration of
Asian Pacific Heritage Month.
Tuesday,
April 10, 2012
 Koji
Steven Sakai on the 8Asians.com blog places the courtroom photo of
the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee number five on his list of
the "Top
10 Iconic Japanese American Photos" of all time, ahead of
the 442 and behind another local icon, the photo of Fumiko Hayashida
holding her daughter Natalie while being evicted from their home on
Bainbridge Island.
Monday,
April 2, 2012
 Bainbridge
Island audiences get it. They've embraced the exclusion very
easily simply as part of their history, much like the residents
I met in Eden, Idaho.
Thanks to the 100 Islanders who came out Friday night
for the DVD screening and discussion at Sakai Intermediate School.
And thanks to Kay Sakai for sharing her memory not only of James
Omura living on Bainbridge, but of working in the hospital on the
night of the Manzanar Riot! See the photo
gallery on our Facebook movie page, photos courtesy of Vivian
Esteban Hwang, and a video
glimpse of the audience watching the screening, courtesy of Vern Nakata.
Thursday,
March 22, 2012
 If
you're on Bainbridge Island, please come to our next
screening of the film on Friday, March 30,
as Islanders commemorate the
70th
anniversary
of the first
forced removal of Japanese Americans in WW2. They’re calling
it "A Day of History, Honor and Healing,” and will
also celebrate the unique legacy of a community that stood by
their
Japanese American
friends and neighbors and welcomed them home.
The screening will be at 6:30 p.m. at the Sonoji Sakai Intermediate
School, 9343 Sportsman Club Road, admission free, and will be
followed by a discussion with producer/writer Frank Abe, U.W.
professor
Dr. Tetsuden Kashima, and Bainbridge Island camp
survivors. Download
a printable program of the full day's events.
Monday,
March 12, 2012
 I
admit was floored when I saw the Northwest Asian Weekly put its
review
of our DVD on the front page this week. I mean, I was
glad to
talk to their correspondent, Andrew Hamlin, but not this. Editor
Stacy Nguyen didn’t think so either, at first, but she
read the piece and thought it was a great story. So she put
it up there.
Regarding
the reference in the piece to anti-war movements of the 1960s,
I hope readers don’t come away with the notion that the Heart
Mountain draft resisters were in any way pacifists or somehow reluctant
to
fight in WW2. These were guys who said they would be glad to fight – just
as soon as their rights were first restored and their families released
from camp. And the proof of that is that some of the guys who served
time in prison for refusing to be drafted from inside a concentration
camp, later gladly reported for duty, as free Americans, when drafted
into service for the Korean War.
Incidentally,
the DVD will be back in stock early this week at Kinokuniya Books
at Uwajimaya
in Seattle. Thanks for those who have asked for it there,
it helps keep the bookstore interested in carrying Japanese American
material. If you can’t make it there, it’s also available
here.
 Wednesday,
March 7, 2012
Thanks for visiting from our
tribute in Crosscut Public Media on the passing of David
Ishii, Bookseller. David put a public face on the wartime
incarceration of Japanese Americans for generations
that passed through his store, read the exclusion
order framed on the wall, looked through his shelves of
Asian
Americana
and
Pacific Northwest history, and stoipped to talk to him about
redress, the resisters, or the nearby birthplaces of John Okada
and Monica Sone. David was a friend of our film, and his passing
leaves a deep hole not only in our hearts but in the life of
the city he enriched with his passions for baseball, fly fishing,
the opera and all the arts. He connected
us all and built community. See also our comments in The
Seattle
Times, "Longtime
bookseller David Ishii was quite a story himself."
Saturday,
February 18, 2012
 Thanks
to the more than 75 who came out today for the Seattle DVD release
at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience.
Some were waiting in line for the museum to open at 10am to get a
ticket for the 1pm screening, then quickly filled the Tateuchi Story
Theater. This was one of our most rapt audiences, who laughed in all
the right places; even the babe in arms enjoyed the film quietly.
Thanks
for sharing your thoughts and questions and it was a pleasure to meet
so many of you afterwards, including Miyoko who told me the story
of why Jim Akutsu switched churches after the death of his mother.
For Mike Tagawa, who told me of his days as an original Black Panther,
here's the ITVS
documentary with lost footage of the Panthers that just aired
last week on PBS. I'm sorry I lost track of the woman who wanted the
Japanese lyrics to the Song of Cheyenne, I wanted to direct her to
this
image of the actual scrap of paper that we found in James Kado's
wallet. It is this song to which Mako fit the melody of the Japanese
Hawaiian work song, "Hore Hore Bushi," and which we were
delighted to be able to include on our new Two-Disc DVD.
I also
want to thank the staff for their terrific arrangements for todays's
DVD release: community programs manager Vivian Chan, education director
Charlene Mano-Shen (who said the audience was "blown away"
by the experience, and who is pictured above welcoming them) and Hanh
Pham and Trayvian in The Marketplace. Speaking of which, only
at The Marketplace can you now obtain the hard-to-find 18x24 inch
film festival poster for CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION, for the
nominal price of $5, half of which goes to support the museum.
If you
saw the screening today, or any past screening, please leave
your feedback here.
 Friday,
February 17, 2012
Thanks to Moira
Macdonald of The Seattle Times for highlighting in her column
in the "Movietimes" section our first
public screening of the new Two-Disc Collector's Edition DVD
of "Conscience and the Constitution." And
thanks to those who have RSVP'd on Facebook. No reservation or
ticket needed. Just come by the
Wing Luke Asian Museum in the Tateuchi Story Theater,
719 South King Street, Seattle, on Saturday, Feb. 18 at 1:00 p.m.
Producer
Frank Abe will screen the film and debut a new DVD featurette, "The
JACL Apologizes," on events that occurred after the
film's release, answer questions, and sign DVD's.
Also in Seattle, see the new
review in the International Examiner. Having read the paper for decades, it’s an honor
to be included in the IE Arts section edited by poet and greengrocer
Alan
Lau.
This
review from Chizu Omori is among the most detailed yet. Looks great
online but the article is truly impressive in print, pick up the
paper if you can.
Finally,
this Saturday, Feb. 11, Seattle University is hosting the The
25th Anniversary of the United States v. Hirabayashi Coram Nobis
Case: Its Meaning
Then and Its Relevance Now, with a lineup starting with Tom Ikeda
and Peter Irons and ending with the Sansei attorneys on the legal
team. Should be quite a reunion with old friends.
Wednesday,
January 4, 2012
 Obscured
in much of this week's news coverage of the passing of Gordon
Hirabayashi is the fact that Gordon was not only a Constitutional
test case,
he was a Nisei draft resister like the Heart Mountain boys. His
case,
along with those of Fred Korematsu and Min Yasui, was opposed by
the wartime Japanese American Citizens League because, as
Mike Masaoka puts it on our DVD, "they
were criminal cases," and JACL favored its own civil habeas
corpus case fronted by the irreproachable Mitsuye Endo.
Listen to how Mike explains it in our bonus DVD audio feature, "Masaoka
on test cases." Read the New
York Times obituary.
 Friday,
December 23, 2011
For last-minute shoppers, the new DVD is just now available
at Kinokuniya
Bookstore in Seattle -- along
with the Japanese American National Museum in LA, the National JA
Historical Society in SF, and Nikkei Traditions of San Jose Japantown.
 For
you college and high school instructors who can use our DVD
in the
classroom, you have an additional teaching resource available to
you through the acclaimed Densho project, the online streaming
video source
for interviews with the surviving Japanese American incarcerees.
We donated to Densho the tapes of all 26 interviews that
we conducted
for the film. You and your students can go from the extended interviews
in our DVD bonus features to the Densho
Digital Archive and delve further into the unedited interviews,
complete with full transcripts for ease of study. This is a unique
source of primary material for students.
Here's how Densho director Tom Ikeda describes it in his Densho
eNews for December (scroll down).
Materials
about Heart Mountain Draft Resistance
Filmmaker Frank
Abe does an excellent job, according to a review
in the Rafu Shimpo, of expanding upon the World War
II draft resistance story at the Heart Mountain concentration camp
with his expanded two-disc collector's edition DVD of Conscience
and the Constitution. The bonus features of the DVD set include
extended interview clips from some of the 26 individuals that Abe
interviewed for the film. Abe donated these 26 interviews to Densho
and these interviews are available for viewing in their entirety
in the Densho
online archive.
 Monday,
December 5, 2011
Thanks
for visiting for the first time if you're seeing our ad in the current
edition of the Pacific Citizen. You can learn
more about the new Two-Disc DVD release, and preview
a few clips on our YouTube page, and order
a copy for your school, library, or for yourself or a member of
your family. Our interview with former assistant PC editor Martha
Nakagawa appears on page 12 of the paper edition of the current issue,
and perhaps we can make an arrangement for posting it.
Monday,
November 14, 2011
See
our new updated page about the JACL that
provides a single portal to our online content on the new Mike Masaoka
audio and video content on the DVD, the Lim Report, and the 2002 JACL
apology ceremony. This is the resisters.com/jacl
page to which the DVD directs viewers after each of the JACL-related
segments on Disc Two. Your feedback welcomed. Still working on a Wordpress
rebuild to enable more viewer interactivity on these pages.
Friday,
November 11, 2011
 On
this Veteran's Day, a fitting testimonial from a new viewer of the
DVD. Mary Matsuda Gruenewald is the author of the memoir, Looking
Like the Enemy. She had just watched the film and said she
couldn't wait to share her thoughts, so living in Seattle like me
she called on the phone. We spoke for a while and here's what she
later shared:
An important
documentary. The story is beautifully crafted, and the accompanying
music score helps to heighten the impact. I was deeply touched.
As someone who
was interned at Heart Mountain during the height of the resistance
movement, I can testify to the emotional turmoil that faced our
entire community. My family was on one side of the controversy.
When we sent my older brother off to Europe to fight in the 442nd
Regimental Combat Team, I had no capacity to acknowledge the viewpoint
of the resisters.
Now I am grateful
to you and the other contributors to Conscience and the Constitution
for your sensitive and accurate explanation of the resistance movement.
After all this time, I am finally able to hear the other side, and
fully appreciate the importance of what the resistors did on behalf
of all Japanese Americans, and others struggling for their rights.
Conscience
and the Constitution is a reminder that there are two sides
to every issue. We would do well to consider the virtues of both.
-- Mary Matsuda
Gruenewald
Author, Looking
Like the Enemy
Sunday,
October 23, 2011
 Had
fun doing an online interview with Koji Steven Sakai for 8Asians.com,
a collaborative blog for Asian American issues. Please see "8Questions
with Frank Abe of Conscience and the Constitution," and leave
a comment there or share the page with others on Facebook. Thanks.
 Sunday,
October 16, 2011
Thanks to Chizu Omori for examining our new DVD in her latest
Nichi Bei Weekly column, "RABBIT
RAMBLINGS: A question of loyalty and ‘Conscience’."
Chizu zeroes in on one of features I was most looking forward to releasing
on the DVD: the bulk of my 1988 interview for KIRO Newsradio with
wartime JACL leader Mike Masaoka.
Martha
Nakagawa's review in the Nichi Bei, "Extras
in ‘Conscience’ DVD add a fuller, if not more controversial,
picture," also captures the significance of this piece for
scholars and students:
The best and
most controversial part of the DVD is the additional footage of
wartime JACL leader Masaoka. Abe includes a 19-minute radio interview
he did with Masaoka in 1988, when Abe was a radio news reporter.
Abe asks the hard-hitting questions, has documentation to back up
everything and gives Masaoka no wiggle room. It is an extraordinary
interview, and Masaoka’s answers are revealing.
On the
home video of Masaoka's "Rebuttal to Critics," Martha astutely
fills in what is left unsaid in his peoration. More on that in a future
post.
 Saturday,
October 1, 2011
Catching up to the fine two-part interview and DVD review
from columnist George Toshio Johnston in the pages of the Rafu Shimpo
newspaper from Los Angeles. Both appeared in his long-running "Into
the Next Stage" column: "Frank
Abe Is Back With a Fresh ‘Conscience’’"
from July 21 and "Continued:
‘Conscience and the Constitution’’"
from August 4.
Thursday,
September 22, 2011
 Two
new reviews appeared on the same day today: Martha Nakagawa in the
Rafu Shimpo, "‘Conscience’
DVD Set Full of Valuable Material," and Eddie Chern in his
Frozen Glory blog, "Conscience
and the Constitution: A Review." Thanks to both for their
thoughtful observations. The Rafu piece even includes images of the
two disc labels and menu screenshots.
Tuesday,
June 21, 2011
 Welcome
if you're joining us for the first time via our first ad for the DVD
in the NichiBei Weekly Obon issue. Order the
DVD here safely and securely.
To examine
all the bonus features of the two-disc set, check out the previews
of the new DVD artwork below, all of which is also posted in our Online
Press Kit.
See especially
the Disc One and Disc Two inserts for the track listing of all the
titles.
Read
our news archive: 2011
| 2010 | 2009
| 2008 | 2007
| 2006 |2005
| 2004 |2003
| 2002 | 2001
 For
homework help, please see our PBS Online site at www.pbs.org/conscience
for online documents and an online Classroom Guide, and send a comment,
compliment or complaint via the ITVS
Comments page. Teachers can download our newly-updated Classroom
Guide as a 328 KB Word document.
PBS
SYNOPSIS: CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION: This award-winning
and controversial documentary reveals the untold story of the largest
organized resistance to the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans,
and the suppression of that resistance by Japanese-American leaders.
(CC, Stereo, one hour)
In World
War II a handful of young Americans refused to be drafted from the
American concentration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Organized
under the banner of the Fair Play Committee, they were ready to fight
for their country, but not before the government restored their rights
as U.S. citizens and released their families from camp.
It was
the largest organized resistance to incarceration, leading to the
largest trial for draft resistance in U.S. history. The government
prosecuted them as criminals; Japanese American leaders and veterans
ostracized them as traitors. The resisters served two years in prison,
and for the next 50 were written out of the official history of Japanese
America. Only recently have we rediscovered the resisters and restored
them to the community. Through their eyes we delve into the heart
of the Japanese American conscience and a public debate that is still
alive today.
AWARDS:
BEST FEATURE FILM: VC FilmFest 2000, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film
& Video Festival
BEST DOCUMENTARY: San Luis Obispo International Film Festival
BEST DOCUMENTARY: New York International Independent Film & Video
Festival
BEST OF FESTIVAL: Vermont International Film Festival (War and Peace
category)
BEST MUSIC SCORE: Emerald City Awards, Seattle
NATIONAL JOURNALISM AWARD: Asian American Journalists Association
AMERICAN SCENE AWARD: American Federation of Television and Radio
Artists
DARUMA CIVIL RIGHTS AWARD: Sacramento Asian American community
 "Conscience
and the Constitution" is produced by Frank Abe in association
with the Independent Television Service,
with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
the Civil Liberties Public
Education Fund, created by Congress to sponsor research on the
wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans. Additional funding is
provided by the Motoda Foundation of Seattle, the Anheuser-Busch
Companies, Brooks and Sumi Iwakiri, and 45 individual Friends
of the Fair Play Committee.
This
Web site and the companion PBS
Online site are made possible by a grant from the California
Civil Liberties Public Education Program, created by the California
State Legislature and administered by the California State Library.
Additional support provided by Michi and Walter Weglyn.
Entire
site © 1998-2012 by Frank Abe |
