Making A Memory & A New Friend At The Movies

Last week I was invited by a female acquaintance of mine to accompany her to the University of Washington's Tacoma campus for an evening screening of two films on the forced relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

This topic had a special interest for me because both my American-born mother and father and their families were part of this unique and unprecedented chapter of history. With a stroke of a pen when then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law Executive Order #9066 on February 19, 1942. Mom turned 17 years old the month before. Dad was all of 14 years. Their lives would be changed forever.

E.O. #9066 made it possible for local military commanders to designate areas of the United States military areas as exclusion zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded". When this was applied to American's of Jpanaese ancestry in a fifty-sixty mile deep area from Washington State to California some 112,000 persons living up and down the West Coast were forcibly removed from their homes and communities by military authorities acting on behalf of the federal government.

Shown that night were the films: "Take Me Home" a dramatization which depicted the evacuation of families from the viewpoint of a small child, and a documentary entitled "Resettlement to Redress" directed at older audiences which which followed the story from the dispursement of all camp residents at the end of the war to the eventual hard fought but successful drive during the 80's and 90's for a governmental apology and monetary redress.

Several segments of videotaped footage from the Seattle, WA hearings held by the US Congressional Commission on the Wartime Internment and Relocation of Civilians at Seattle Central Community College in 1981 were featured in the second film.

The screening in turn is part of a larger series of films on Asia Pacific Cultures sponsored as a result of a partnership between the Tacoma's Asia Pacific Cultural Center (APCC) and the Urban Studies Program at University of Washington Tacoma, with suppport from the Cultural Diversity Resource Center.

As it turned out, I got far more than I originally bargained for that evening. As a young woman in my twenties, I had the pleasure of serving as a representative for the Lake Washington chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League on a ongoing redress committee which met a number of times prior to the Congressional hearings stop in Seattle.
But until recently I had never seen any footage from this event. So it was a complete and delightful surprise!

Memories of having a bird's eye view of some of the proceedings and sitting next to some of the principals shown in the film including Washington State's former son Gordon Hirabayashi, born & raised in Thomas, Washington at other meetings came drifting back as the picures on the movie screen flashed by.

Hirabayashi, whose Supreme Court challenge from that era now forms one an important trio of cases whose impact has had more far-reaching consequences than one merely and ostensibly temporary decision affecting a small minority in a war rapidly fading from our view, was a personal hero of mine for years prior to the hearings. So meeting him in person back then had been a real thrill and it still is.

As a result, the invite to the movies became a truly unexpected treat. My hostess is rapidly making the transition between an acquaintance and a good friend. We started out with a shared interest in art. Now I have proof she has excellent taste in film. If I am lucky, the day will come when I can make a similiar impression in return.

In the meantime, the two of us have made ourselves one good memory...