Blogger and filmmaker Koji Steven Sakai at the 8Asians.com site has singled out one of the surviving members of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee for his list of unsung heroes. Yosh would be the first to say he’s not a hero, but he does fit under Koji’s criteria of “doing the right thing” at the right time:
Yosh Kuromiya
Much of th
e narrative of Japanese American World War II experience has focused on the bravery of the young Japanese American soldiers in the 442nd. Kuromiya’s story strays far from that narrative. At the age of 19, he made the principled decision against fighting for a country that had incarcerated him and his family based only on their ethnic background. He faced not only prison time (he was sentenced to three years) but he was also ostracized both from within the community and from society at large.
About Frank Abe
Producer/director of CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION, now available as a Two-Disc Collector's Edition DVD with two hours of new bonus features on the largest organized resistance to the WW2 incarceration of Japanese Americans.
