JACL - Power of Words Handbook

WEEK 2: PRE-WAR & FORCED REMOVAL

WEEK 2 SCHEDULE

films of the week

SUNDAY - june 21, 2020

hollywood at war

Thomas Edison’s 1989 documentary newsreel of the Wreck of the Battleship Maine and subsequent film coverage of the Spanish-American War were the beginnings of a new role for film.  Since then, film and other video technologies have influenced the way Americans understand and consume conflict.  As motion picture technology improved, Hollywood became increasingly intertwined with the military industrial complex.  During the war years (1941-1945), the integration of anti-Japanese propaganda into major studio films was fueled by the cultural and economic conditions of that time.

“Hollywood at War” provides a brief history of the Hollywood Studio system’s emergence as the hegemonic gatekeeper of American popular media.  Jason Matsumoto and film curator Rob Buscher provide a detailed  discussion of anti-Japanese WWII propaganda films.  

This conversation focuses on entertainment-based Hollywood films (fictional narratives), cartoons, documentary news reels, and soldier training films. produced by the US Military sponsored War Pictures.

Historic wintersburg

By Mary Adams Urashima

Author and historian Mary Adams Urashima talks about the history of Historic Wintersburg in Orange County. Mary is the author of Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach and has led an effort to save and preserve this 100+ year-old Japanese pioneer farm and mission property for the past decade.

The Historic Wintersburg property is representative of the era of Japanese pioneer settlement of the American West.  The property is rich in the history of 20th century Japanese immigrants’ pursuit of citizenship and civil liberties.  Historic Wintersburg is home to both the C.M. Furuta Gold Fish Farm and the Wintersburg Japanese Presbyterian Mission.  The mission is the oldest Japanese house of worship of any denomination in Orange County and in most of California.

“Historic Wintersburg” was a part of the Tadaima! A Community Virtual Pilgrimage programming.

only the oaks remain

Courtesy of the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition

The beauty of this oak grove belies a tragic history. At the beginning of World War II, The U.S. Department of Justice turned the Tuna Canyon Civilian Conservation Corps camp into the Tuna Canyon Detention Station by enclosing it with barbed wire and guarding it with soldiers.

From December 1941 to October 1943, Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants, Japanese taken from Peru, and others were imprisoned here in violation of their civil liberties. On June 25, 2013, the Los Angeles City Council designated this site as a Los Angeles Historic

The oaks, as witnesses to history, compel us to learn from our nation’s mistakes and stand strong against prejudice, wartime hysteria, and injustice.

(This was composed for the Tuna Canyon Detention Station memorial plaque.)

monday - June 22, 2020

unboxed: artifacts from janm’s permanent collection

Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

Kristen Hayashi provides an overview of JANM's permanent collection through a behind-the-scenes look in collections storage. Additionally, she highlights the Kondo Family and the Sakamoto-Sasano Family's collections, which are just two of many within JANM's permanent holdings that provide poignant perspectives on the Japanese American World War II experience.

how-tos for the home archivist with jamie henricks

Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

Jamie Henricks, JANM’s archivist, gives a peek into the museum’s archival collections and provides an introduction to caring for papers and paper-based collections at JANM.  Look for highlights from multiple collections to follow the journey of a donation from box to shelf.

A boy’s best friend

Courtesy of 50 Objects/50 Stories

Mas Hashimoto’s family raised canaries in an aviary behind their home in Watsonville, California. One of his sweetest childhood memories was the day that some of the canaries were traded for a puppy and Sunny, a bundle of white fur, entered the lives of the Hashimoto brothers. But “when the war came along, we were to evacuate, we couldn’t take Sunny, no pets are allowed. And that was, that hurt.”

To learn more about how people coped with the loss of their pets visit the 50 Objects/50 Stories website.

COMMUNITY ARCHIVE

This is a space to share photos, stories, artifacts, and memories from your family, your community, and your own life. Click HERE to enter.

tuesday - june 23, 2020

Hawai’ian Bonsai

Courtesy of Pacific Bonsai Museum

Japanese citizens began immigrating to Hawaii in the late-1800’s, applying their horticultural skills to the grueling work of laboring on sugarcane plantations. Despite the challenges Japanese Hawaii’s continued to immigrate and by 1920, people of Japanese ancestry comprised 43% of Hawaii's population. As a cultural majority they established strong communities as if in Japan. The art of bonsai was adapted by using seed-grown, Japanese-native plants suited to tropical climates, as well as the islands’ native flora.

The popularity of bonsai in Hawaii steadily increased until December 7, 1941. Following Pearl Harbor, many Japanese Hawaiians stopped practicing bonsai. Fearing they would be considered unpatriotic, bonsai practitioners in Hawaii threw away, hid, or burned their trees. After the war, bonsai culture slowly returned with the help of charismatic teachers like Haruo "Papa" Kaneshiro and Ted Tsukiyama into a vibrant, cross cultural art form.

kilauea military camp: once a detainment camp

Courtesy of the National Park Service

Most people are unaware that Kilauea Military Camp was used as a Japanese detainment camp during World War II following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Park Archeologist Dr. Jadelyn Moniz-Nakamura discusses the experience of the arrest and subsequent detention of Japanese Issei (first generation immigrants) and Nisei (second generation American citizens) at Kilauea Military Camp. Learn more about how the camp was utilized and hear first-person accounts of their stories.

click here to view the film

Wednesday - june 24, 2020

shaping okinawan identity and community in hawai’i during wwii

Courtesy of King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center

Kelli Y. Nakamura and Brandon Marc Higa share stories about community building between Okinawan immigrants and Okinawan prisoners of war in Hawaiʻi. They discuss assimilation policies enforced during Japan’s Meiji Restoration Era (1868-1912) to contextualize Okinawan people’s treatment as a minority within a minority. Our guest speakers also shed light on the experiences faced by Okinawan prisoners of war at the Honouliuli incarceration camp, the largest and longest-running detention site during WWII. Yuimaaru, a term meaning “mutual assistance and cooperation,” is explored throughout the presentation as a custom that emerged to unify and strengthen Okinawan identity and community throughout the war. Yuimaaru continues to characterize Okinawan relationships in Japan and Hawaiʻi today.

This program is adapted from the presenters’ recently published article in the University of California, Los Angeles' Amerasia Journal titled, “Yuimaaru: Okinawan Prisoners of War Shape Okinawan Identity & Transnational Connections.”

Know your historic sites, know yourself: stories of how asian americans respond to racism

Courtesy of Laura W. Ng

The title of this talk is a riff off of the phrase “Know your history, know yourself.” Advocates of ethnic studies have taken this phrase up to argue that marginalized people would be empowered if they knew how their ancestors contributed to the building of this nation as well as how they dealt with racial prejudice. In this presentation, I focus on the latter – racial prejudice – and more specifically on racism targeting Filipinos/as, Chinese, Japanese, and Punjabi living in the Western US. I argue that historic sites not only illuminate these events, but how Asian Americans responded to racism. Some of the sites I will be discussing include the Tacoma Chinatown, Punjabi farms in the Imperial Valley, Riverside’s Harada House, and the Angel Island Immigration Station; these sites show how Asians in American faced decades of structural racism, all the way up to the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Let It Not Happen Again: Lessons of the Japanese American Exclusion

Courtesy of Humanities Washington and Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community

Bainbridge Island was the first exclusion area designated by Executive Order 9066. Clarence Moriwaki, President of the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, provides a human, historical account of this national tragedy. Moriwaki uses historical images, including historical and current propaganda, to explore the fear, racism, and failure of political leadership that led to these unconstitutional actions. This video explores the parallels to what’s happening in America now and emphasizes why we must not let this happen again.

thursday - june 25, 2020

Densho Genealogy Session-oral histories with tom ikeda was postponed due to illness

Courtesy of Densho

ONE ON ONE GENEALOGY CONSULTATIONS

Brought to you by California Genealogical Society, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, NPS and JAMP

Tadaima 2020 participants were provided online sessions with consultants for one-on-one help with researching their roots.  Space was limited and sessions were only 20 minutes, so preparation was key!

a brief history of the jacl

Courtesy of the JACL

As part of the Tadaima Virtual Community Pilgrimage hosted by Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages, we're happy to present a brief history of the JACL and a discussion with past national president/Executive Director, Floyd Mori, and current national president, Jeffrey Moy, hosted by Vice President of Public Affairs, Sarah Baker. We want to thank Lane Nishikawa for allowing us to show his trailer for his upcoming documentary on the JACL, "League of Dreams" from West River Productions.

#dearancestors

By Brynn Saito

Week 2: Anti-Asian Racism and Propaganda

Prompt: Re-grounding in Breath, Body & Place. When we turn toward history, we confront the racist images and narratives that propelled official policies and acts of state violence. Some of us are experiencing anti-Asian racism in the midst of this global pandemic. Many of us are reckoning with the racist propaganda, symbols, and narratives that have led to the oppression of African Americans and other people of color in the U.S. To counter these messages, write a poem that begins with “I come from…” Describe and list the people, communities, and/or places and landscapes that have made your life possible. Be specific; use all of your senses. Re-ground yourself in the many circles of life surrounding you, lifting you, bringing you breath and strength.

take a virtual pilgrimage of the American “Assembly Center” sites

Courtesy of Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages

The U.S. Government designated temporary housing as “Assembly Centers.” People of Japanese ancestry were held in these makeshift centers while the more permanent “Relocation Centers” were completed. These makeshift centers were often built in fairgrounds and race tracks. Inmates lived in livestock barns or hastily constructed barracks.

Click here to begin

friday - june 26, 2020

Gaman

Courtesy of Music of Remembrance

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—a majority of them American citizens—were forced to incarceration camps scattered across the western United States. Gaman explores this painful chapter of history through stories of individuals, families and artists based on their personal accounts, journals, letters, and art works. The work’s title refers to the struggle to endure the unbearable with patience and dignity. It draws extensively on the imagery and words of Takuichi Fujii and Kamekichi Tokita. Both were prominent artists with paintings included in major exhibitions before they were sent with their families to the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. In Minidoka they kept expressive diaries that, along with their drawings and paintings, serve as powerful documentation of Japanese American wartime experience. 

French-born American composer Chagnard’s score hauntingly combines Western and traditional Japanese instruments and makes powerful use of visual projections. In this recording of the May 2018 world premiere, MOR’s instrumental ensemble is joined by soprano Ann Moss, baritone/narrator Erich Parce, and special guests Asako Tateishi (taiko drum) and Ringtaro Tateishi (fue flute).

click here to watch

Book Club: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet with author jamie ford

Courtesy of Minidoka Pilgrimage Planning Committee

In this live zoom session author Jamie Ford discussed his novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Following the discussion and interview, Jamie answered questions about the book, writing, and anything else that was on the hearts of the Tadaima 2020 participants.  During this time of turmoil in our culture this session provided an opportunity to reexamine the decades-long racial discord that led to the Japanese American incarceration.  The lessons learned from our past may be applied to current events.

Moderated by Dale H. Watanabe

Artist Talk with Paul Kitagaki

Today's Artist Talk features photographer Paul Kitagaki, Jr. 

When Paul started his career as a photographer, his uncle told him about Dorothea Lange photographing their family while in camp. Several years later Paul searched  for the photos. Once Paul found the originals he realized every photo represents an untold story of the Japanese American incarceration. This realization inspired Paul’s latest exhibition, "Gambatte! Legacy of an Enduring Spirit, Triumphing over Adversity." The exhibit highlights over 60 of the people Dorothea photographed (or their descendants) for her work with the War Relocation Authority.  Join us as moderator John Tonai and Paul Kitagaki, Jr. discuss this 14-year project.

Artist Talk is a Tadaima! segment that features Nikkei artists and their work about the Japanese incarceration and/or the Nikkei experience.

JANM Digital Film Festival:Q&A on the legacy of Madame Kansuma with Miyamoto Tachibana, June Berk, and Yuka Murakami

Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

"Madame Fujima Kansuma" shares the life of the celebrated Japanese American kabuki dancer and teacher with a career beginning in the early 1940s and spanning decades. Filmmaker Yuka Murakami was joined for a discussion around the legacy of Madame Kansuma with Madame Kansuma’s daughter, Miyako Tachibana, and longtime student, June Berk, who were both featured in the film produced for a celebration of Kansuma’s 100th birthday in 2018. As the third part of the JANM Digital Film Festival, this Q&A streamed live on June 26, 2020, explored her extensive career—including dancing and teaching during World War II while incarcerated at the Rohwer concentration camp, and the impact of her work today.

saturday - june 27, 2020

ask an archaeologist panel

Archeological studies of WWII incarceration sites has rapidly expanded over the past twenty years. In this live panel discussion, six scholars who worked on various incarceration sites discussed their field work and their research in Japanese American archeology and history. Collectively the panelists worked at over half a dozen sites related to Japanese American incarceration, including Kooskia, Amache, Gila River, Topaz, Minidoka, Manzanar, Tule Lake, and Honouliuli.

Panelists: Stacey Camp, Bonnie Clark, April Kamp-Whittaker, Koji Lau-Ozawa, Dana Ogo Shew, Anna Tamura

Never Give Up: minORU YASUI AND THE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE screening q&A

Courtesy of the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project

Join Erin Aoyama as she speaks with Holly Yasui, Peggy Nagae, June Schumann to talk about the Minoru Yasui Legacy Project and the film "Never Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice."

The film recounts the life history of an American hero. Minoru "Min" Yasui was born in Hood River, Oregon in 1916. He was the first Japanese American attorney in Oregon.  During World War II, Min initiated a legal test case by deliberately violating the military orders which called for the incarceration of over 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry in U.S. concentration camps. Min spent nine months in solitary confinement awaiting his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Unfortunately the Supreme Court ruled against him. After the war Min moved to Denver, where he continued to defend the human and civil rights of not only Japanese Americans but also Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, religious minorities, children and youth, the aged, low-income people, and other marginalized groups.

The Min Yasui Legacy Project honors the legacy of Minoru Yasui through many projects which defend civil rights and advance social justice.

NIKKEI BLOCK PARTY!

Welcome to the Nikkei Block Party! Join hosts Courtney Ozaki and Erin Aoyama as they announce tonight's performances, which features performances by Keiko Agena, Aisha Fukushima, Kristi Yummykochi, and First Voice's Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu.