Top honors for CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION, the PBS documentary on Japanese American resistance to their WW2 incarceration, were announced this week by two different news media groups at their national conventions in San Francisco and Minnesota.

At its convention in San Francisco, the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) gave the program the National Journalism Award for Unlimited Subject Matter in Television. A short clip of the program was played before a full house of nearly 1,000 journalists and media managers at a luncheon at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in Embarcadero Center, where producer/director Frank Abe and the other winners received their awards.

On Saturday, Abe will fly to St. Paul, Minnesota, to receive the American Scene Award from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), the union representing broadcasters in television, radio, and new technologies. The award recognizes excellence in the employment and portrayal of ethnic minorities and seniors, among others, on television, radio, videotape and new media.  The crystal obelisk will be presented in ceremonies at the Radisson Riverfront St. Paul.

The AAJA award follows by more than a decade the presentation of its first Lifetime Achievement Award to James Omura, the prewar editor of the San Francisco Nisei magazine Current Life and the wartime editor of the Rocky Shimpo newspaper. Omura was indicted but later acquitted for publishing news reports about the Nisei draft resisters at the camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and writing columns that offered them support and editorial guidance. Omura is a key figure in CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION.

"Coming from my peers, this award means a lot to me," said Abe. "I actually got the inspiration for doing the documentary after seeing the reception James Omura received at the AAJA convention here in the City in 1989. It showed me what a responsibility we had to go out there and tell authentic stories about the Japanese American experience for national TV audiences, because if we didn’t, who would?"

Abe is a former national vice-president of AAJA, and was recognized last summer as one of three Founders of the group’s Seattle chapter. He was also an AFTRA shop steward during his 13 year career at KIRO Newsradio in Seattle.

CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION won top honors at several film festivals and competitions when it was first released last fall. The two new awards are the first to come from national organizations.