Heart Mountain resisters Frank Emi and Mits Koshiyama, and the late
journalist James Omura, are featured in the new film "Rabbit in the Moon," by
Emiko and Chizuko Omori. The film, funded in part by the Civil Liberties Public Education
Fund, is debuting at the Sundance Film Festival. Here is the from the Sundance website:
Most narratives about the World War II internment of
Japanese Americans focus on the internees' silence and patriotism, as proven by their
service in segregated military units like the 442nd Battalion.
Emiko Omori offers an extraordinary alternative
perspective, which portrays second-generation Japanese American, or Nisei, camp survivors
not as passive victims or model citizens but angry, active, critical individuals.
The inspiration for the film is the director's struggle against the silence in her own
family concerning the internment, in particular their amnesia about her mother, who died
soon after her release from camp in Poston, Arizona.
In the process of recovering her memory, Omori interviews former internees, including her
sister, who describe how the camps whittled away the community's cultural strength and
self-esteem and the federal government maneuvered the rise of the Japanese American
Citizens League (JACL), a leadership organization which championed unquestioning
compliance with the evacuation and encouraged military service to prove loyalty.
Rabbit in the Moon aggressively overturns the JACL image of Japanese Americans during the
war and brings an end to a generation of silence. Dissenting voices by interned Nisei are
brilliantly used to renarrate newsreel propaganda films about the camps. Draft resisters
from the Heart Mountain camp speak angrily about having to prove an American citizenship
that was supposed to be their birthright. Impressively archived and beautifully
photographed, Rabbit in the Moon is a historically important documentary with a poetic
voice that reflects a culturally ingrained restraint.
- Shari Frilot
For those of you near Utah, the schedule is:
Friday, Jan 22, 7 pm
Holiday Village Cinema III
Sunday, Jan 24, 11am Prospector
Square Theatre
Tuesday, Jan 26
Holiday Village
Cinema III
Wednesday, Jan 27, 10 am Holiday Village Cinema III
Friday, Jan 29, 4 pm Holiday
Village Cinema III
Chizu also reports a one week theatrical showing is being planned
for Los Angeles on February 26th. This is going to be a breakthrough year for the story of
the resisters and a new look at Japanese American internment history.
Update: January 14, 1999
Why is this man smiling? This is Rep. Kip Tokuda, and he has a bill before
the Washington State House of Representatives for creation of a Washington Civil Liberties
Public Education Fund, similar to the federal program that supported our project. In a
letter to constituents, he writes:
Thank you for your work toward educating the public
about the experiences of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II. I am writing to
let you know about an exciting piece of legislation that I am working on for the upcoming
legislative session. It is called the Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Act, and
its primary purpose is to continue the grant program created by the federal CLPEF program.
This bill would create a state grant program designed to encourage the creation of new
education materials —such as videos, plays, speaker’s bureaus, and
exhibitions—for elementary, secondary, and community college audiences.
The Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, the major supporter of
our project, has just unveiled . It is not only clean and well-designed, thanks to Website Administrator Gary
Otake, it promises to set the standard for Japanese American camp
history on the Web. There's a lot of clutter out there, and some outright
misinformation as
pointed out, but the new CLPEF network site provides access to the latest and most
reliable work on the incarceration experience and what it means for us as Americans.
Congratulations Gary. Here's their introduction:
The CLPEF network is the
online community of people and projects sponsored by the Civil Liberties Public Education
Fund (CLPEF). This website is dedicated to providing information and
resources to help educate the public on issues related to the wartime
incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry
Update: January 29, 1999
We offer without comment. We're just glad we're making our own movie.
Another Civil Liberties Funded project, Phillip Gotanda's play, "The Sisters
Matsumoto," recently opened at the . The from the Seattle Times is here. Here's the Times capsule:
Three sisters return to their California family farm after
being incarcerated in a World War II internment camp for
Japanese-Americans, in this informative, earnest but polemical
and slow-moving world premiere Philip Kan Gotanda drama. Directed by
Sharon Ott, the drama rarely catches fire or gives us a strong sense of
the sister's complex individuality. Rather, it presents us with schematic
characters, plot twists, and speeches, with an occasional very welcome
gust of sardonic humor. The cast includes noted Asian American actors Kim
Miyori, Michi Barall, Lisa Li and Stan Egi.
Update: January 31, 1999
Thanks to Kenji Taguma, English editor of the Nichi Bei Times in San
Francisco, for sharing this news.
Here is a program that I thought you’d be
interested in. It’s being put together by Patty Wada and my good friend Andy Noguchi
of Florin JACL ...
JACL District to Hold Program on Nisei Draft
Resisters Long-Divisive Community Issue to be
Discussed at Feb. 7 Program in Stockton
Addressing an issue that has long divided the
Japanese American community, the Northern California-Western Nevada-Pacific (NCWNP)
District of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) will hold an educational program
on the World War II Nisei draft resisters at its Sunday, Feb. 7 District Council meeting.
The meeting, hosted by the French Camp JACL, will be held at the Radisson Hotel, 2323
Grand Canal Blvd. in Stockton.
The program, which will begin at 1:30 p.m., will include a
slide show on the draft resisters produced by the Florin JACL. Following will be a panel
presentation with Ethnic Studies Instructor Wayne Mayeda of California State University
Sacramento, who will provide an historical perspective; draft resister Mits Koshiyama of
San Jose, who will share his experiences; and Marvin Uratsu, president of the Military
Intelligence Service Association of Northern California.
We're also trying to get details of the Los Angeles "Day of Remembrance" ceremony in which the resisters
are reportedly being recognized. If you have them, please e-mail us.
Update: February 10, 1999
We have received more than 1200 hits since we started counting last November, 200 of them in just the last week.
The growth is astounding, particularly since we haven't even released our product yet. Thank you and please come back again. We'll have an update
on our show next week. In the meantime, some updates on previous items:
Congratulations to Emiko Omori for winning the Sundance Film Festival Cinematography Award for Documentaries
for two pieces she worked on: "Regret to Inform" and "Rabbit in the Moon," the latter of which includes
interviews with Heart Mountain resisters Frank Emi (that's him in the banner logo above), Mits Koshiyama, and journalist James Omura.
Rep. Kip Tokuda's bill to create a Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Fund now has a bill number: HB
1572. It's been assigned to the House Education Committee. No hearings set yet. Contact Kip's aide Anndi
Kawamura, at (360) 786-7838.
MIS Nor-Cal Veterans Honor Nisei Draft Resisters JACL NCWNP District Resolution Tabled
By KENJI G. TAGUMA
Nichi Bei Times, February 10, 1999
STOCKTON A major step in community reconciliation was taken Sunday, as the Military Intelligence Service Association of Northern California presented a commendation to Nisei draft resisters who stood on principle to reject being drafted to serve in the U.S. military during World War II. Nisei draft resisters refused to be drafted from behind barbed wire until their citizenship rights were clarified and their families released from internment camps. Their stand on constitutional principle, however, was met with community ostracism by many veterans and especially by leaders of the Japanese American Citizens League.
Update: Monday, February 15, 1999
You may consider the following as evidence of the lingering social ostracism against the Heart Mountain
resisters. I was about to announce that members of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, Foundation had asked whether we would be interested in
showing our final cut at their annual meeting in Powell on June 18th.
But the Foundation's board met in Los Angeles last week and ... well, read for
yourself.
I returned from the Heart Mountain Wyoming
Foundation meeting with the bad news for you that the group doesn't feel it's
ready yet to show a film on the resisters. I went into the meeting with support, but they
gave in to the wishes of the former internees in Los Angeles.
Whether they are ready or not, this video is coming. We are
shooting inserts of still photos and documents later today at Phil Sturholm's studio in
Bothell, Washington. Stephen Sumida and Lawson Inada will be recording their voices
for the soundtrack in early March. We are pencilled in for final editing in Phil's
studio the last week of March and the first week of April. And we will shortly have
an announcement naming our music composer, after a nationwide search. Check back in
a few days.
Fresh from the Sundance Film Festival, "Rabbit in the
Moon" is booked for a one-week theatrical run in Los Angeles for the week starting
Friday, February 26th. The film includes interviews with two Heart Mountain
resisters.
Thanks for your many mentions of our film and
what’s been happening with it. Sundance was a blast and a half. We had such a
good time I was high for days. But back to earth now.
Could you post on your website that we are planning a
reception at the Laemmle Grande 4 Plex theatre after the 7 pm showing of Rabbit on Feb.
27. Aiko and Jack will be there, along with Frank Emi and Hisaye Yamamoto. Nothing fancy,
but a chance for those who want to meet and talk with these people and about the movie.
The theatre’s address is: 345 S. Figueroa.
Chizu says that reception will be held in the lobby of the
theater. She also says her sister Emiko will be showing the film in San Jose at the
Cinequest documentary festival earlier on the 27th, but she had no other details.
The Day of Remembrance is also coming up this week.
For more details please check the special CLPEF Network events page . This list does not include one key event: This Saturday, February 20th, from 2-4 p.m.,
Frank Emi, Yosh Kuromiya and other LA area resisters will be recognized with the "Fighting Spirit" award in a program at the
Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First Street, in the Historic Little Tokyo District, downtown Los Angeles. The resisters are respected
in some quarters, still not in others.
Just getting word that Heart Mountain resister Mits Koshiyama has been invited to speak at
Stanford University to the Nikkei students group there. The date is March 2nd, around 6:30 or 7:00 p.m., at Kimball Hall. Organizer Steve Yoda
is sending more details.
Also, Kenji Taguma has succeeded in putting the Nichi Bei Times of San Francisco online. Check out his site . Hey Kenji, where's the link back to
our site from the "links & resources" page?
Update: Thursday, February 18, 1999 From the King County government website I help manage, a page on Day of Remembrance.
I want you to know I had nothing to do with creation of this page. Leonard Garfield in our Office of
Cultural Resources created it on his own as part of his Historic Preservation series, and
found quotes from an old article I had written. I was embarassed and flattered at the same time. We will
eventually build and maintain a page of our own on this site on the invention of the first "Day of Remembrance" here in
Seattle and Portland in 1978 and 79, for permanent reference by students.
Firm word now on resister Mits Koshiyama's talk at Stanford University next month.
Mits Koshiyama will be speaking at 6:30 in the main lounge of Kimball Hall
at Stanford University on March 2, 1999. Stanford University Nikkei (SUN) -- the Japanese American organization at Stanford -- will be sponsoring his talk.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me anytime. My telephone number is (650) 497-0525; my address is P.O. Box 16745 Stanford, CA 94309.
Discouraging word on the bill to create a Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.
I have bad news about HB 1572. The bill did NOT receive a hearing in the Education committee. Basically, this means the bill is dead. Kip and I are going to be meeting with some people here to see if there are any ways to resuscitate.
There were ideological issues that Republican members of the committee could not get past. They did not want to "open the floodgates". There are also some problems with a Holocaust survivors insurance bill. Interesting coincidence. The two Republican members opposing the two bills are both from Eastern Washington.
Kip suggested that people continue calling their legislators and members of the education committee. We are still working on the possibility of a hearing.
The hotline number is: 1-800-635-6000.
Update: Sunday, February 28, 1999
It's true that our youth are the future of our community.
I met 16-year old Sharon Miyake in 1977 in an Asian American theater workshop I taught at
Franklin High School in Seattle. We recruited Sharon to organize the community car wash for the nation's first-ever Day of Remembrance in 1978, in the parking lot
of Uwajimaya supermarket. More recently we worked together in the office of then-King County Executive Gary Locke.
Now, Sharon Tomiko Santos is and co-sponsor of the bill to create the Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.
See as reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
At the same time, the California CLPEF is about to get rolling.
From Gary Otake on behalf of the CLPEF Network <[email protected]>
The applications and guidelines should be available in the first week of March. Stay tuned, as the deadlines are extremely tight and the applications will be due one month after they are released. Funds must be distributed no later than June 30, 1999.
Community meetings to discuss CA CLPEF grant guidelines and answer your questions have been scheduled...
Gary includes a list of meetings at California public libraries throughout the month of March.
You can now find the dates and times on the .
For specific questions regarding the grant program, we are advised to contact
Executive Director Diane Matsuda
at <[email protected]>
I'm also late catching up to Chizuko Omori's personal report on presenting her film "Rabbit in the Moon," from a recent Seattle Times.
Lawson Inada is flying up this coming Friday to record the narration for our documentary. We are starting the final edit March 8th. We're also
getting more requests for students from classroom help, including our first request specifically for help on a 7th grade report on Frank Emi.
That's something this site will deliver on starting this summer and fall. More later.
Update: Tuesday, March 2, 1999
The L.A. Times review of Emiko and Chizuko Omori's theatrical showing of "Rabbit in the Moon" is .
Take a look at how critic Kevin Thomas
undoes everything he says by asserting at the end "the camps may have saved some from lynch mobs." Unbelievable.
In our documentary you'll see the late Jimmie Omura's reply when a JACL leader raised that
fear to him in 1942. The capsule review:
Part documentary, part personal essay about the lingering effects of the internment camp experience on the Japanese American psyche.
We also received a letter that our friend Paul Tsuneishi, who also appears in our doc, has just resigned
from the board of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation in protest of the board's withdrawal of
its invitation to premiere our video in June. We didn't ask him to, but we admire his principles and
regret this has become an issue for so many. See the background below, from February 15th.
Update: Tuesday, March 9, 1999
I'm holding in my hand a CD-R of Lawson Inada's narration for our documentary, recorded over a four hour session last Friday by our good friend
and "sound architect" Jim Wilson at the studios of Pure Audio in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood.
When you hear it, I hope you'll agree with those who call Lawson the unofficial poet laureate of Japanese America.
This week we have started the final edit of our show, the version that we
send out for post-production effects, dissolves, titles and original music. More soon.
A few of you have e-mailed to say you enjoy reading the reviews of the Omori's "Rabbit in the Moon," so here's the review from the
.
And California Civil Liberties Public Education Program grant applications are now downloadable from their . Get 'em while they're hot.
Update: Monday, March 15, 1999
An excellent snapshot of where the Heart Mountain resisters now stand in the Japanese American community has just
been published in the Pacific Citizen, reprinted here with the kind permission of the writer, Martha Nakagawa.
You can see that Martha went to great lengths to check all sides of the story and report it.
WHERE WE'RE AT: after a week of editing with Phil Sturholm, we now have the first ten minutes of our fine cut down on tape.
You'll be the final judge, of course, but Phil is very pleased with how the opening works. Everything ties together, and
it'll work even better with music.
Update: Monday, March 22, 1999
More than half of those interned in camp were children, an angle explored in a new one-hour documentary
called "Children of the Camps." We haven't seen it yet, but it seems to chronicle a group psychotherapy
experience facilitated by Dr. Satsuki Ina, a psychotherapist and a former internee.
"These now grown children trace their histories in order to heal from the lifetime trauma of this tragic chapter in American history,"
according to . The following message outlines a very well-thought out distribution plan for
the program, a preview of the drill we were planning to ask of visitors to this site when our own
documentary is ready.
The Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
needs your help.
We have just received word that Children of the Camps, the
Documentary, will be aired on PBS in May of 1999, which is Asian Pacific American Heritage
month, giving us the opportunity to reach millions of people across America.
But we are at a CRITICAL STAGE, as each individual PBS affiliate
station is NOW deciding whether they will air Children of the Camps. Children of the
Camps, the Documentary, will be fed by PBS National to every PBS affiliate station in the
country near the end of April for each to tape record and air at their discretion in May.
STATIONS ARE MAKING THEIR PROGRAM SCHEDULES FOR MAY RIGHT NOW.
Here is what you can do to help get this documentary aired in your
community:
1-CALL OR EMAIL YOUR LOCAL PBS AFFILIATE STATION (EMAIL LIST OF
ALL PBS AFFILIATE STATIONS ARE ): Express your interest and desire to see Children of the Camps, the
Documentary, aired on their station. Encourage them to air it if they are not yet planning
to. Confirm the date(s) and time(s) that your station will air the program.
2-FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO OTHER INTERESTED COLLEAGUES, FAMILY,
FRIENDS, AND ORGANIZATIONS.
3-USE THIS PRESS RELEASE: Print out
the linked press release and submit to local papers, print in your newsletters, web sites,
etc.
4-CHECK OUR WEB SITE AT
: Go to our web site to see if Children of
the Camps, the Documentary, is already scheduled to air in your community. Encourage
colleagues, family, and friends to watch it and email/send us feedback.
5-CALL OR EMAIL US: Let us know the date and time
that your local PBS station will air Children of the Camps, the Documentary, so that we
can publish the information on our web site. Our phone number is (415) 705-0885 and our
email is [email protected].
Since the experience of the Japanese Americans serves to
illustrate the traumatic consequences of all forms of oppression, the producers of
Children of the Camps, the Documentary, hope that through it’s aring, we can help
educate and promote an awareness among the broader community about the long-term
consequences and impact of racism.
Your support would be greatly appreciated.
In the spirit of community,
Satsuki Ina, Ph.D.
Project Director
Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
Kimberly Ina
Associate Producer/Outreach and Workshop Coordinator
Children of the Camps Documentary and Educational Project
We're also getting word of yet another dialogue between the resisters and JACL on April 24th in Scottsdale, Arizona, at
a meeting of the three JACL District Councils from California. Too bad spring training will
be over by then. We've asked for a special correspondent's report for this site, and would be happy to post any
other reports about it sent to us.
Update: Wednesday, March 24, 1999 Are you a teacher or a student in the state of California? Ever had trouble finding information about
the resistance in the camps, or materials about camp in general? We'd like to hear from you.
We will be building up this site to be the on-line study guide for broadcasts of our documentary, and
we would like your guidance on what you would like to see posted on this site,
what you would find most useful in your work.
Click here.
Thank you, Stephen Sumida, for contributing your voice and your heart to this production. Our new
Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, and incoming president
of the Association of Asian American Studies, today laid down a voice track for us. He read the letter
written from jail in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on the eve of the trial of the first 63
resisters, back to Frank Emi and friends back at Heart Mountain Relocation Center. At around
the third take engineer Jim Wilson and I just looked at each other in the control room and smiled.
It's a short piece that may last only 20 seconds on-screen, but Stephen brought such warmth and
truth to his reading. I think it will get across the integrity and conviction of these young men, boys really, at the
moment they faced the full consequences of their resistance.
Update: Tuesday, March 30, 1999
This is off-topic, but thought I'd see what the interest was in posting news about non-Nikkei projects.
Just a note to let you know about our project. Steve Ladd referred me to your website and I got a quick look at it, and I wanted to touch bases with you. We are working on a documentary on WWII conscientious objectors-tentatively titled "The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It". It will look at nonconbatants, those who served in Civilian Public Service Camps administered for CO's by selective service and the peace churches and the 7,000 who were in prison for refusing conscription. We will also look at the legacy of the CO's in civil rights, anti-apartheid, and the arts. We are considering putting up a website during the production process and might like to toss some ideas around with you.
My partner on the project is Rick Tejada-Flores who produced "Fight in the Fields, Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Struggle". We have funding from ITVS and the MacArthur foundation and are about 2/3 of the way through shooting with a deadline of November for the finished program.
Yours, Judy Ehrlich
Update: Wednesday, April 7, 1999
Thanks for returning to our site. We're back in the editing suite this week, with about 18 minutes of fine cut laid down on tape.
Please excuse our lack of updates recently. We're also building an academic advisory committee that will guide us in expanding this
website into a complete on-line student resource and teachers guide in support of our
broadcasts later this year and early next year. We'll have more news very soon.
In the meantime, we're asking for referrals to K-12 instructors in the state of California who have experience in teaching the Japanese American incarceration experience.
We are seeking someone who would be interested and qualified to review a middle school and high school curriculum we are developing. We've already received some
excellent suggestions from our posts to the CLPEF and AAAS e-mail listserv's. Thanks.
When does conscience and the constitution air? i am
very interested.
Thanks for asking. We've just spent six straight days in Phil
Sturholm's editing suite in Bothell, Washington, stitching the fine cut together and
we're five minutes from the end. It's coming together. Based on the time it
will take us to fill in some missing shots, compose the music, and so on, I'd say look for
us on your local station sometime this fall and in May of 2000.
Long before that day, we will expand this website into the on-line
study guide and teacher resource for the broadcasts. Which leads to this message
received:
I came across this web site by accident. But WOW I am
very impressed. When will the documentary show on PBS? I am a high school teacher and
would like to use it for class. I do teach about Japanese Internment and I like to talk
about resistence to give students a sense that you can stand up and make a difference but
other than a few sources such as the case in Seattle, Hirabayashi, and the Korematsu case,
there has not been much readily available that has a readibility level for
highschool/middleschool readers. So far the best piece I use is based on a mural titled
The Journey.
I also like to send/take students to the Japanese
Memorial garden in Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. There is a teacher at Franklin
High School in Portland, Tom McKenna, who does a lot with internment. I will pass this
site address on to him.
Please add me to your list of interested teachers as
you develop lesson plans etc. Thanks
Lorraine Weyrauch
Thanks Lorraine. And anyone else who would like to be added to
our e-mail list, please send a message. We'll get a form posted soon to make it
easier to subscribe. We have a proposal pending for development of an interactive
CD-ROM based on the research that went into our documentary, with curriculum engineered to
meet state history and social studies content standards for grades 6-12.
I received an order from a guy at Lucent Technologies
for my CD which also resulted in me selling them a site license for a one time use for
their employees, all part of their diversity training. Naturally I asked how he learned of
my CD, and it was from your web site! So, thanks! I owe ya one!
Ann N.
You're welcome as always, Ann. Thanks for helping us find
archival photos of Wyoming jail cells for a key sequence matching the images with the
sound of Mako, the actor, singing an Issei work song. Check here
for a web special on Ann Noble's "The Heart Mountain Relocation Story on
CD-ROM."
Update: Thursday, April 29, 1999
In Memoriam: Michi Weglyn 1926- 1999
I've just returned from vacation to receive the sad news that author and
historian Michi Nishiura Weglyn passed away last Sunday, April 25th. Her good friend
Phil Najitsu Nash has e-mailed a
tribute you can read here, along with some suggestions on how we can honor her,
including reading her landmark 1976 work, Years of Infamy, now reprinted
by the .
Michi changed Japanese American history forever by being
the first Nisei to do original, systematic research into the government's wartime documents
held in the National Archives. No longer did the public have to rely on
anecdotes and recollections. Michi was the first to take the outrage most Nisei held
inside and express it by quoting the government's own words about the camps, the loyalty
questionnaire, segregation, and expatriation.
Michi was the first supporter of this project. She inspired
us when we were down. Michi will be missed, but I'm grateful that we will be able to bring you her voice. I feel
her presence daily as we edit what was probably her last interview into our documentary on
the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee. MIchi emerges as a person of fire and
conviction, elegant and incisive, a scholar who also brings heart to our program.
She was also painfully shy, and it took some coaxing to convince her to appear on
camera with us. In fact, it took Frank Chin, Paul Tsuneishi, and Brian Tatsuno to
stage the February, 1998 tribute to her as part of the Los Angeles Day of Remembrance to
finally get her to commit to the interview she kept postponing. She did talk to us,
in a suite at the New Otani Hotel, before her health started to decline. It was her
gift to us, and it is in her spirit and her memory that we continue.
We understand that the loop of videotaped tributes from the many
friends of Michi Weglyn shown at last year's tribute will be replayed this weekend on the
video wall at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.
Sweet dreams, Michi. At least now you can be with your beloved
Walter.
Update: Friday, April 30, 1999
Kenji Taguma of the Nichi Bei Times shares his own
tribute to the memory of Michi Weglyn, reprinted with permission here.
He also shares word of a tribute in San Francisco.
Clifford (Uyeda) and I, among others, are
planning a Nor Cal tribute to Michi on Saturday, May 8 in SF’s J-town.
I’ve lined up Grace Shimizu (JLAs), Fumie Shimada of Sacramento (JA
railroad/mine workers), and Mits Koshiyama (resisters). Also Kiku Funabiki, Toshiko
Kawamoto, Wayne M. Collins, Rosalyn Tonai, etc. are hosting this as part of our
"Friends of Michi Weglyn" committee.
Update: Thursday, May 13, 1999
Yet another passing. Karl Yoneda was one of the men hustled out of camp during the
Manzanar Riot of December 6, 1942, an event described in our documentary as the first
expression of protest following word that Japanese American leaders were urging the
government to reinstitute Selective Service for the Nisei in camp as proof of their
loyalty. As a matter of fact, the late Michi Weglyn sets up this story for us....
you'll have to see the expression on her face as she recalls:
The reaction in Manzanar and other camps was, whaaat?
They want to raid a concentration ...you know, concentration camps for bodies, I mean, to
be shot at...?
I have been informed that Karl Yoneda died last
night at 7:15, at Fort Bragg where he had been living with his son Tommy. His grand
daughter Tamara, who was with him when he died, said that he left peacefully.
Karl came to the United States from Japan around seventy years
ago as an opponent of the Emperor. He was active in the early 1930s in agricultural and
labor battles as a member of the Communist Party. He married Elaine Black, a marriage that
lasted over fifty years. He became a longshoreman. During World II he was sent to Manzanar
concentration camp although an opponent of Japanese involvement in the war. He later
served in Burma with U.S. Army Intelligence.
Karl became a leading Asian Pacific historian
in his later life, noted for his book "Ganbatte" about his experience in
organizing a multi-racial cannery union in the 1930s. He was an active member of the Labor
History Workshop and the Southwest Labor Studies Association.
As soon as I receive word from the family on when the memorial
service will be I will notify all of you. It may be on Sunday the 23rd but this
is not confirmed.
Best,
Don Watson
We will shortly post a list of photos and images we are
still seeking to complete the visual part of our documentary. Among the items we
still need is an uncut front page of the Rocky Shimpo newspaper edited by James
Omura in Denver in 1944. Also any photo of Larry Tajiri, the wartime editor of the Pacific
Citizen.
The Omori sisters' "Rabbit In the Moon" has more
showings set.
Rabbit will be shown on June 1, Tuesday, at the
Seattle International Film Festival, 7:30 at the Egyptian Theater. Emiko will be here.
Wing Luke Museum and Jack Straw Studios are hosting a reception afterward.
Also, it will be shown on the POV series on PBS on July 6. In
addition, it will be shown at the Smithsonian Institution on June 18.
So, we are busy. Hope all is going well. Chizu
Update: Friday, May 28, 1999
We now have a complete cut of the soundtrack of our one-hour
documentary. That means the soundcuts from our interviews and Lawson Inada's
narration are locked in, and we now fill in some missing visuals, take the tape to the
video post-production house for graphics and special effects, take the soundtrack to the
audio post-production house for the 8-track sweetening, and send the result to the
composer for music.
I am taking this tape down to
Calfornia in mid-June for some private showings in living rooms in San Jose and Los
Angeles.
I have just been at your website while doing
some research for a local radio piece I’m preparing to do. Wyoming Public Radio will
be attending the annual Heart Mtn. Foundation conference in Powell, WY in a few weeks, and
I’m trying to get up to speed so I can ask good questions of those I get to talk to
there. The website says you’re in post-production, but do you have anything
more specific on air-date, etc.?
Thank you very much,
Heather Feeney
Wyoming Public Radio News
Laramie WY
(307) 766-3587
I wish everyone well at the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation
meeting on June 18th. We will work with PBS and local affiliates on airdates once we
send them the finished show, but I would expect we will be able to schedule local airdates
and screenings as soon as November, and no later than next May, 2000.
From Professor Art Hansen, California State
University, Fullerton <[email protected]>
Thanks for the info on your website about Karl
Yoneda’s passing. However, he was NOT "hustled out of camp during the Manzanar
Riot of December 6, 1942," having left about a week earlier when he joined the
voluntary combat team of the U.S. Army; it was, rather, his wife, Elaine Black Yoneda, and
their son, Tommy Yoneda, who were "hustled" out of Manzanar during the evening
of the riot.
Cheers, Art
Thanks, Art. My excuse is that I couldn't at that moment put
my hands on my copy of your definitive article on the Manzanar Riot from Amerasia
Journal back in the 1970's. By the way, I'd like to hear from anyone who has a
publicity still from the riot scene in John Korty's "Farewell to Manzanar," for
use as a visual in our show.
As we pause to honor America's war dead on this Memorial Day,
remember the words of resister Mits Koshiyama:
I had lot of respect for the people that went for their
draft physicals. I know many of them didn’t want to go but they went and I never was
against them. A lot of resisters had brothers in the 442nd and relatives in the 442nd.
… They had their own mind and I had mine. And I respected their thinking and that was
it.
Please check back on or about June 1st for an announcement of
an exciting new development for our project.
Update: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 We're pleased to announce that both our video documentary and our New Media
project have been awarded a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education
Program. We were waiting for an official announcement but there hasn't been one yet.
Still, the word is out.
The award means that by June of 2000 we will be able to:
Place VHS copies of our one-hour video documentary in
California middle schools, high schools, community colleges and universities, and public
libraries.
Place copies of our CD-ROM, enhanced with audio and video
clips, in California middle schools, high schools, community colleges and universities,
and public libraries.
Expand this website into an interactive on-line study guide to
support local broadcasts of our video documentary on California PBS affiliates, and
support screenings in classrooms and at public forums.
Present two public forums accompanied with screenings and personal
appearances by Frank Emi in Southern California and Mits Koshiyama in Northern California.
I look forward to meeting the 29 other grant recipients at
the State Capitol Library in Sacramento this coming Friday. I will be continuing on
to San Jose and Los Angeles in the week of June 21-25 to meet with the resisters and
search for more visuals for our show..
Through a special arrangement with the San Jose
Mercury-News web team, you can now link from this site to a reprint of "," reporter Donna Kato's exceptional West Magazine story on
Dave Kawamoto and the resisters of Mountain View and San Jose. Our thanks to Mercury
Center news editor Donna Yanish and our AAJA colleague Bruce Koon for making this
1993 story available to you.
Update: Saturday, July 3, 1999 The Wall Street
Journal finally came out with its
long-awaited story on the Heart Mountain resisters, last Friday, June
25th. We were interviewed along with others in the community for this
story, but were cut at the last minute by reporter Nori Shirouzu's editors.
Too bad, we were hoping to get a mention of our web address to draw more
visitors. Mits Koshiyama's hair is not as white as it was drawn; in
fact his hair is blacker than mine. But Nori completely
researched the story and got some great interviews over the past few years.
We asked him why the Wall Street Journal was interested, and he replied,
"they like good stories, and this is a good story."
Check back on Monday. That's when we
expect the San Francisco Examiner to print reporter Annie Nakao's story on
the resisters (and hopefully mention our website!), in a story previewing
Tuesday's PBS broadcast of Emiko and Chizuko Omori's "Rabbit in the Moon," a
90-minute film airing on the "POV" series (as they say, check local
listings). "Rabbit" is the personal story of the wartime incarceration
of Emiko and her family, with her tribute to Heart Mountain resisters Frank
Emi and Mits Koshiyama, and journalist James Omura.
"Rabbit" touches on the question of
cooperation with wartime incarceration, through anecdotal references by
Omura, Shosuke Sasaki of Seattle, and Harry Ueno of San Jose. I had
lunch last week in San Francisco with JACL executive director Herb Yamanishi
and education guru Greg Marutani, and they expressed concern the film does
not present any context for those remarks, no information about the JACL or
any opportunity for response. They have a comment prepared for
distribution to chapters and I encouraged them to post it on their website.
If it appears we will link to it from here.
Update: Tuesday, July 6, 1999 Thanks to Annie Nakao of the San Francisco Examiner for mentioning
our website address in her story today, "." Tonight's the night of the
national feed of "Rabbit in the Moon" on PBS, though in many cities the program
may be delayed. We will try to post as many reviews as we can.
If you are reading this on your laptop in a
Seattle hotel room while attending the UNITY Journalists of Color convention
this week, I will be showing a short clip from our forthcoming documentary
on a panel Friday afternoon. We will be hard to find though because
the panel itself is called "Rashomon Effect: Conflicting Truths On
the Buffalo Soldiers." The panel is Friday afternoon from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
in room 308 of the state convention center. Please stop by and
say hello and pick up one of our flyers. I'll be showing a piece of our
rough cut. We expect to be complete by this fall or winter and on the
air by May of next year.
Update: Saturday, July 24, 1999
There's a controversy sweeping the Internet this
week, so here it is for all to share:
I received a fax from Jack Herzig and
responded with this letter - if you can protest the inscription to Cherry
Tsutsumida of the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, please
do so. Her fax # is (202) 861-8848.
Heres my letter:
July 20, 1999
VIA FACSIMILE
Ms Cherry Tsutsumida
Executive Director
National Japanese American Memorial Foundation
1920 N. St., N.W., Suite 660
Washington D.C. 20036
Re: Inscription on the monument
Dear Cherry:
I just read an article in the Washington Times
about the proposed inscriptions on the monument and felt compelled to at
least register my most profound protest against the inscription which
states:
The court ruled that the adoption by
government, in crisis of war and threatened invasion, of measures of
public safety, is not wholly beyond the limits of the Constitution and
is not to be condemned.
First and foremost, the inscription
essentially justifies the exclusion and detention and excuses what we know
now was a lie: That it wasnt threatened invasion nor necessarily the
crisis of war which sent the Japanese Americans to camps; it was racism,
pure and simple. To engrave and memorialize the racist justification for
the camps on a memorial dedicated to the memory of those who fought to get
the Japanese Americans out of camps, desecrates their memory and misleads
the public, in my opinion.
Further, the Courts ruling was more
complicated that simple quotation suggests. The Supreme Court offered
several justifications for the military actions but these justifications
were internally inconsistent, illogical, conflicted with prior case law,
and were part of the wartime Japanese cases which many legal commentators
believe are some of the worst cases ever decided by the United States
Supreme Court. The hypocrisy of those decisions should not be masked with
a veneer of legitimacy by citing one quote from all of the cases.
Additionally, those cases have been
discredited, at least for their justification of racism and also because
the government altered, suppressed and destroyed evidence favorable to
Japanese Americans in order to win those cases at all costs. These
propositions formed the bases of the successful coram nobis actions of
Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Min Yasui.
The impression created by this quote is that
what happened to Japanese Americans was Constitutional and justifiable, an
impression which undercuts all of the education done through the Redress
Movement. I do believe that if this quote is placed on the monument, a
large segment of the Japanese American community will be disappointed,
angered and will feel a deep betrayal of the basic principles for which
redress was fought. I urge you to reconsider including the proposed quote
on the monument.
Very truly yours,
MINAMI, LEW & TAMAKI LLP
In other news: if you took our card at the UNITY Journalists of Color
convention in Seattle and are visiting for the first time, thanks for
visiting. We showed a 10 minute clip from our rough cut and
although we held some small focus groups in California last month, this was
actually the first public viewing of any part of our latest cut. It
was certainly reassuring that the audience for our panel snickered at the
right places and gave us a round of applause when the lights came up.
Congratulations once again to Emiko and Chizuko Omori for the national
PBS broadcast on July 6th of , a personal memoir that introduces the issues of
cooperation and resistance to the camps to the nation. It opens the
door for our documentary to deliver the complete story of the Heart Mountain
Fair Play Committee and a presentation of the voices and the primary
documents from the Japanese American Citizens League. The JACL is
referred to in Rabbit. Ours will be the first program
to examine those issues in depth.
As promised, we've created a special page with
links to the latest reviews and features. A and have been set up for Rabbit by PBS, POV, the Television
Race Initiative and NAATA. It was created by Steven Chin, formerly of the
San Francisco Examiner and the now-defunct Channel A website.
He's now a principal with and
we had a chance to talk with him at UNITY. Check out his work.
The presents an interactive experience
exploring key themes related to the Japanese American internment. The site
invites user to discover the people and history behind the internment
using video clips from the filmand then asks users to respond with
stories of their own personal history. Users are asked to consider how the
internees must have felt when they were uprooted from their homes and
stripped of their rights as U.S. citizens and to relate this experience to
their own lives.
Developed by , the Web site takes Omoris film
from tv screen to computer screen, encouraging peoplethrough the use of
message boardsto discussed the emotions evoked by the film. The
site also includes a form to message the filmmaker, an historical
timeline, and a resource page where users can continue their education
through books, videos, and classroom lesson plans. The airing and site are
sponsored by PBS, POV, the Television Race Initiative and NAATA.
Steve Chin
Update: Sunday, July 25, 1999
I didn't think the controversy over the inscription on the Japanese American
veterans memorial would last very long ....
From: NJAMF, 2910 N St., NW, Suite
660, W.D.C. 20036.
(202) 861-8845.
Fax: (202) 861-8848
To: Aiko and Jack Herzig
Date: July 23, 1999
Subject: Inscription on NJAMF Wall
Dear Aiko and Jack:
Thank you for your input.
The original intention of our Board was to
show what Jurassic logic the Supreme Court exercised during those war
years. Due to the limitations in word space, the words were terse and
abbreviated.
In retrospect, we agree with you that to try
to make a point so complex in one statement does not serve the intended
purpose.
More regrettable, you have effectively pointed
out that such a passage without context can in fact detract from the
victories of subsequent efforts so nobly attributable to the coram nobis
cases of the 1908s.
Please be assured that the offending passage
is being deleted. We regret our clumsy efforts but are delighted that you
are, as usual, awake at the switch.
With regards, I am
/s/ Sincerely yours,
Cherry Y. Tsutsumida, Executive Director
Handwritten note: What a network you have! cyt
Update: Thursday, July 29, 1999
In World War II the Pacific
Citizen newspaper functioned well as the house organ of the Japanese
American Citizens League and the carrier of the group's patriotic message of
loyalty and cooperation with the government. Its editorials praised
the valor of the Nisei soldiers and condemned the resisters as a threat to
the postwar acceptance and assimilation of the overall community.
Today the Pacific Citizen
and indeed the entire JACL are going through an intense period of
self-examination on the question of the role of JACL leadership during the
war. An analysis piece in last weeks issue "A
Look at JACLs Role During WWII, Stance on Resisters" examines the
current debate.
The article mentions some key memoes and
reports from the period, documents that are also part of our show. In
the coming weeks and months leading up to the broadcast premiere of
"Conscience and the Constitution," we will slowly be adding the complete
text of those documents, and will let you know when they are up.
Update: Sunday, August 1, 1999 Today in San Lorenzo, California, a confrontation is expected over
the issue of whether the modern-day Japanese American Citizens League should
issue a formal apology to the "resisters of conscience" for the JACL's wartime
suppression of all resistance. The full story is previewed in this
weekend's article in the San Jose Mercury-News, "Debate over interned `resisters' reopens
painful wartime wound." Our thanks to reporter Donna Kato for
including a link back to this website in her story. Ms. Kato has been
following this story ever since her on our first ceremonial homecoming for the "Boys
of Mountain View-San Jose" in 1992.
According to the Mercury-News, the JACL district meeting is open to the
public and will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Eden Japanese-American
Community Center, 710 Elgin Street in San Lorenzo. For more details call
(415) 345-1075.
Should the JACL apology be adopted on a national level, a JACL official
has asked our help in compiling the addresses of the 315 young men convicted
of Selective Service violations in World War II so JACL can send a personal
letter of apology to the resisters or their survivors. If you are such
a family, or if you know of such a family, and want to make sure that the
letter reaches the intended persons, please have them
e-mail us or ask for our mailing address.
Speaking of the JACL: Karl Nobuyuki, who served as JACL national director
in the late 70's and early 80's, recently posted this criticism of the Omori
sisters' Rabbit in the Moon on .
21. Biased Perspective
Wed Jul 7 2:55 AM US/Eastern 1999
The program, while well done was a gross distortion of facts. The most
evident element was the absence of a JACL response to the comments made by
the so-called "experts" in the program. This approach displayed an
interesting definiton of "documentary": as one that is based upon what one
may "document" regardless of of the truth or real. I have real time
footage of one of the leaders of JACL at the time in question, Mike M.
Masaoka. He put in perspective the climate, hysteria and actions of that
time. These produces of this so-called "documentary" would not dare
produce such fiction when Iron-Mike was still alive. They only
jump-on-the-bandwagon after his death. This is not the first attempt. Only
the most successful. It presents a distorted perspective of wartime
hysteria and weaves in deception around pathos of "victims." It stinks!
The producers of this "documentary" failed to address much of the real
feelings of the time. Rather, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, they
attack and distort. This is the worst "documentary" from PBS that I have
seen, not just on this subject, but from PBS as a whole. It was awful,
distorted and played by a small, but vocal group. Their most obvious
short-coming is their bias and it is ugly.
-- Karl K. Nobuyuki
And here is Chizu Omori's reply:
38. Rabbit In the Moon
Thu Jul 29 2:28 PM US/Eastern 1999
To Karl Nobuyuki: thank you for your JACL perspective. Please make a
documentary giving your side of the story.
-- Chizu Omori
Not to give away too much of our own show, but you will find we will be
presenting all sides of this story, and let you the viewer decide for
yourself... with additional documentation that you will find on this website
closer to the time of broadcast early next year.
Update: Wednesday, August 4 1999 We have our first confirmed screening: Saturday evening, May 5,
2000, at the University of Washington HUB Auditorium in Seattle.
The Nikkei Experience in the
Pacific Northwest
May 5-7, 2000
Seattle, Washington
The Center for the Study of the Pacific
Northwest, Department of History, University of Washington, Seattle, will
hold a conference on the history of the Japanese (Nikkei) communities in
the Pacific Northwest in conjunction with the formal recognition of
Professor Gordon Hirabayashi by the UW College of Arts and Sciences as its
distinguished alumnus for the year 2000. Conference sessions are intended
for students, Nikkei, and the general public, as well as academics.
Scheduled participants include Roger Daniels, Arthur Hansen, Gail Nomura,
and Gary Okihiro.
Our goal is to foster interest in, research
on, and discussion of the wide range of Nikkei experiences across time and
throughout the region, including both sides of the 49th
parallel. In addition to submissions dealing with the World War II period,
we welcome paper proposals on subjects ranging from early immigration
through redress and its aftermath, including topics drawn from cultural,
economic, and social history, as well as legal and political history.
The Center reserves first rights of refusal
for publication for all conference papers. A selection of essays derived
from the conference will be published in Pacific Northwest Quarterly and
in an anthology published by the University of Washington Press. Funding
for the conference and publications is being provided, in part, by the UW
College of Arts and Sciences and the Emil G. and Kathleen T. Sick Fund
supporting studies in western history.
Submit a 250-word paper
proposal and a two-page c.v. postmarked no later than October 31, 1999, to
the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of
Washington, Box 353587, Seattle WA 98195-3587. Responses will go out by
November 30, 1999. For more information, contact Louis Fiset at [email protected] or Kim McKaig at 206-543-8656, [email protected].
From all accounts the confrontation at the JACL district council meeting
in San Lorenzo last weekend did not materialize. From our
correspondent:
There were three veterans who
spoke out against the resolution and/or parts of the "apology"including
Ernie Iiyama (surprising, since he and his wife Chizu are considered Nisei
progressives; I think he was against the public ceremony), Skeets Oji (an
MISer, and part of the group that gave a "commendation" to the resisters);
and Harry Fukuhara (a legendary MISer who was part of MacArthurs
occupation team; another MIS NorCal board member, I believe).
Five of the eight JACL districts have passed
the resolution, and the other three want further discussion within their
membership. The authors of the resolution, very good friends of mine, say
that even if the resolution doesnt pass, the education of JACL membership
that came along through this process was very significantwith all
chapters discussing the issue for the first time.
The meeting also included a (brief) discussion
of "Rabbit in the Moon," with Chizu Iiyama apparently criticizing it for
being "too one-sided."
Update: Thursday, August 5, 1999
I'm now sold on the value of making personal appearances. I was
doubting the value of previewing a clip from our program at the recent UNITY
Journalists of Color convention, but out of it now comes this column in
yesterday's San Jose Mercury-News, "Documentary
honors interned resisters," by Joe Rodriguez.
FRANK ABE belongs to the original
"model minority" -- Japanese-Americans. It's supposed to be a compliment,
but my sansei friends gag whenever they hear it. Many Americans, I think,
need to believe in the myth of an obedient and completely assimilated
minority. Abe is out to destroy it.
Mind you, I would never say "destroy."
But our program will I hope shift the paradigm of how we view Japanese
Amercan history, by offering new information that many simply didn't want us
to hear... in large part out of the need as Joe says to believe in the
archetypes that sustained this community for so long. Thanks for the column,
Joe.
Update: Thursday, August 12, 1999
As the Japanese American Citizens League debates whether to issue a formal
apology to the resisters for its wartime suppression of all resistance, the next
step will take place at noon on Sunday, August 29th at Merced Community College
near Fresno. The Central California District Council of JACL will vote on
the resolution. A number of news media are planning to cover it. We
may be among them.
Its been a busy week, as in
the wake of the front page Wall
Street Journal article on Nisei draft resisters (June 25 by Norihiko
Shirouzu) and the JACL resolution apologizing to the resisters, Ive been
contacted by four news agencies this week for background and/or comments
on the situation.
NHK, Japans equivalent of PBS television, is
going to do a story on resisters (and also redress for Japanese military
atrocities, another issue Im involved in). Also Japans Sankei Shimbun
(their Los Angeles bureau) is working on a piece.
Asian Week is also doing an
article, and I talked to a Sacramento Bee editorial writer earlier this
week. The Bee actually printed Friday, Aug. 6 on my dad (including a photo) that ran on their
front page.
At the urging of Aiko Yoshinaga-Herzig, we submitted a proposed
inscription for the Japanese American National Monument in Washington, D.C.
Ms Cherry Tsutsumida
Executive Director
National Japanese American Memorial Foundation
1920 N. St., NW, Suite 660
Washington D.C. 20036
Dear Ms. Tsutsumida,
I realize it may be too late to submit
proposed inscriptions for the monument. Nevertheless, it is important to
show the public the diversity of Japanese American thought. Even though
visitors may be looking at a monument, they should know that we are not
monolithic.
Let me suggest the following quote from
the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, the group coming to be known as
the resisters of conscience:
"We feel that the present program of
drafting us from this concentration camp is unjust, unconstitutional,
and against all principles of civilized usage. Therefore, we members of
the Fair Play Committee hereby refuse to go to the physical examination
or to the induction, if or when we are called, in order to contest the
issue."
Frank Emi
March 1, 1944
from inside Heart Mountain concentration camp
Thank you for your consideration,
Frank Abe
Gee, there was a second column written as a result of our UNITY
Journalists of Color panel last month: "," by Donna Britt, a
columnist for the Washington Post, published last Friday, August 6th.
And here's a in yesterday's San Jose Mercury-News following up
on Donna Kato's recent piece on the resisters.
Update: Sunday,
August 29, 1999 Our thanks to the Central California District JACL for their hospitality
at todays meeting at Merced College. With photographer Curtis Choy and boom
operator Tim "sound is my life" Song Jones, we shot much-needed video of their
debate on the resolution for a JACL apology to the resisters. They voted the
resolution down, which could mean the end of the process or the start of a new
round of debates. But the video we shot will help us capture this
still-unfolding story for our show.
In particular we want to thank district governor Grace Kimoto and office
director Patricia Tom for making us feel welcome and helping make the
arrangements. We were able to meet longtime Fresno JACLer Shim Hiroto and
say hello again to the always-lively Fred Hirasuna, both family friends of
our shows narrator, Lawson Inada. We interviewed Andy Noguchi of
Sacramento, author of the original resolution, Kenji Taguma, English editor
of the NichiBei Times, and several others.
May Takahashi brought printouts of our website to the meeting, but she
had a bone to pick with us. She said nowhere has she seen any direct
statements by the wartime JACL against the resisters that would warrant the
group to make an apology now. Thats one area of our site that is still in
development now, as volunteer Chris Nishiwaki in Seattle is busy scanning
the documents that May wants to see. We have to focus our limited time on
finishing the TV show, but once thats done and sent off to the PBS pipeline
we can really bear down on sharing the research that went into our script.
Update: Sunday, September 5, 1999 Here's this week's story from the Pacific
Citizen on the Central California District JACL
rejection of the National JACL apology to the resisters.
Update: Saturday, September 18, 1999
Heart Mountain resister Mits Koshiyama is scheduled to return home today
after undergoing triple by-pass surgery on Tuesday, Sept. 7, at Good
Samaritan Hospital in Santa Clara, California. Here's the note from a mutual
friend.
I called the hospital yesterday and they told me he was removed from ICU
and is now recovering in a "normal" bed. He's still scheduled to go home
tomorrow so it sounds like there's been no complications. Thank god!!
I guess Mits went in for a angiogram last Friday and the doc found three
partially or fully blocked arteries so they decided to operate immediately. Hope
he's gonna' feel better 'cos he's been complaining about feeling very weak.
Our best wishes to Mits for a speedy recovery. We would be happy to forward any
messages to him.
Update: Monday, October 4, 1999
We are
pleased to announce that we have just signed a production license agreement with . Based in San Francisco, ITVS was created by
Congress in 1991 "to create and promote independent media that will expand civic
participation by bringing new voices and expressiveness into the public discourse."
ITVS receives its funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This
partnership means our show will receive broad distribution to public television stations
nationwide.
The agreement with ITVS also provides us with finishing funds to
hire a top film editor, and we are proud to announce that Ms.
Lillian Benson, A.C.E
has agreed to do our final off-line edit. Lillian was nominated for an Emmy for her work on
the landmark civil right series EYES ON THE PRIZE II. She has edited numerous
documentaries for HBO, CNN, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel, and PBS .Her
feature film credits include ALMA’S RAINBOW, and TWISTED starring Christian Slater.
Ms. Benson is the first African American female member of American Cinema Editors, the
internationally recognized honoray society of film editors. She is a native of Brooklyn
and earned her B.F.A. at Pratt Institute. We are honored to have her on our team.
Our agreement with ITVS calls for us to deliver the final broadcast
version by March 1, 2000, with projected airdates next May.
Update: Tuesday, November 2, 1999 This weekend 45 Nisei draft resisters who served time at a prison camp northeast of
Tucson, Arizona, will be recognized at dedication ceremonies for the newly-renamed Gordon
Hirabayashi Recreation Site. Spring training in Arizona will never be the same.
For more information about the event or about Nisei resister
Gordon Hirabayashi, we have posted the news release for
this Sunday's ceremony and the text
for the interpretative signs at the site, which contain a
lot of useful school information. More details from Nichibei Times editor Kenji Taguma:
Gordon was sentenced to there, which used to be
a federal honor camp. Also, about 40+ Nisei draft resisters (most, like my dad, from
Amache; but some from Topaz and Poston) were sentenced there. Well, the camp will be
renamed in Gordon’s name, but will also honor the Nisei draft resisters. The Nov. 7
ceremony is beginning to turn into a big thing. Paul Tsuneishi will be there, along with a
couple of other Fair Play Committee members. We will have about 7 "Tucsonian"
resisters there, and the Rafu Shimpo and Pacific Citizen (Martha Nakagawa) will be there
as well. Also attending will be Grace Kubota Ybarra, whose brother was named after Gordon
(you may know this, but Grace is the daughter of Guntaro Kubota, one of the original FPC
seven).
To our delight, also attending will be Wayne Maeda of CSU
Sacramento and Andy Noguchi and family—who were instrumental in helping to broadcast
the resisters’ story to the community, particularly in Sacramento.
Last week, I had sent some photos, documents and articles,
which I beleive will be used as part of the interpretive exhibit at the desolate Santa
Catalina Mountains site.
Gordon is scheduled to speak at the ceremony, as is Rose Ochi
of the Manzanar Advisory Committee (the committee is meeting in Tucson that weekend). I
have been asked to speak, in addition to the son of another Amache resister. My entire
immediate family (sans a sister in Japan) is going to Tucson.
The Ramada Inn in Tucson is booked, and the University of
Arizona History Department is hosting a reception for Gordon and the resisters on
Saturday, Nov. 6, 3 p.m., at the Ramada.
The ceremony itself will be held on Sunday, Nov. 7 at 10 a.m.
at the mountain site.
Thank you Mary Farrell for inviting us to screen our film there.
I regret we will not be able to attend as we are now in final off-line editing with
Lillian Benson, working out of Montana Edit in Santa Monica.
Update: Wednesday, December 29, 1999 Happy New Year everyone. Our apologies for the lack of updates but for the past
six weeks we have been consumed with the re-editing and rewriting our documentary in Santa
Monica and Seattle. We are currently booked for studio time to assemble the
broadcast version of our tape in the last week of January, so if you receive desperate
phone calls from us looking for better photos, please help us out! Thanks to all of
you who have responded to our pleas these past two months.
In response to our urgent request for information posted below,
thanks to Grace Kubota Ybarra and Eric Muller for providing new leads on Shogo Adachi and
Samuel Menin. We still need to find new sources of Issei and Nisei home movies taken
before the war, for a short scene in our show.
Look for us in the new year with details on how you can help in
construction of our forthcoming CD-ROM study guide and version 2.0 of this website.
URGENT REQUEST: We need to find
additional photographs or any information about people who came into the
lives of the Heart Mountain resisters in Wyoming during WW2. If
you have any leads on photos or biographical information about these people,
please e-mail us. Thank
you!
Mr. Adachi, an Issei businessman
in Laramie, Wyoming during the war who befriended the resisters during their trial.
We only know his first name.
Mrs. Sylvia Toshiyuki, a
Caucasian woman married to a Japanese American who lived on 18th Street in Denver in 1944.
Vern Lechliter, the reporter who
covered the two trials for the Wyoming Eagle newspaper
Robert Lawrence, FBI special
agent in Wyoming or Colorado in 1944
U.S. District Court Judge Eugene
Rice, trial judge for the conspiracy trial of the Fair Play Committee. He may have
been a visiting judge from another state.
Samuel Menin, Denver attorney who represented
first group of 63 resisters at trial
Photos of the Rocky Shimpo
newspaper office in Denver in 1944
The sister and brothers of Kiyoshi
Okamoto: In 1943 he had a younger brother in Idaho, a
WWI vet who was 40 in 1943, and a younger sister in Pleasantville, New York teaching
social science who was about 45 or 46 in 1943. He had another sister, 52 in 1942, who
expatriated to Japan on the first trip of the Gripsholm, married to an "Alien,"
presumably an Issei. He had another brother who was 42 or 43 in 1943, somewhere in China,
he didn’t know where, also an American citizen who took over "a lot of American
interests" when the Japanese army invaded China.
And does anyone know what happened
to the photos of Mike Masaoka of the JACL that were published in Bill Hosokawa's NISEI:
THE QUIET AMERICANS? Mr. Hosokawa has himself lost track.
active, critical individuals.
The inspiration for the film is the director's struggle against the silence in her own
family concerning the internment, in particular their amnesia about her mother, who died
soon after her release from camp in Poston, Arizona. 
Why is this man smiling? This is Rep. Kip Tokuda, and he has a bill before
the Washington State House of Representatives for creation of a Washington Civil Liberties
Public Education Fund, similar to the federal program that supported our project. In a
letter to constituents, he writes: 
and slow-moving world premiere Philip Kan Gotanda drama. Directed by
Sharon Ott, the drama rarely catches fire or gives us a strong sense of
the sister's complex individuality. Rather, it presents us with schematic
characters, plot twists, and speeches, with an occasional very welcome
gust of sardonic humor. The cast includes noted Asian American actors Kim
Miyori, Michi Barall, Lisa Li and Stan Egi.
It's true that our youth are the future of our community.
I met 16-year old Sharon Miyake in 1977 in an Asian American theater workshop I taught at
Franklin High School in Seattle. We recruited Sharon to organize the community car wash for the nation's first-ever Day of Remembrance in 1978, in the parking lot
of Uwajimaya supermarket. More recently we worked together in the office of then-King County Executive Gary Locke.
Now, Sharon Tomiko Santos is and co-sponsor of the bill to create the Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Fund.
See as reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
