Tule Lake was the largest and most infamous of the camps. At its peak it housed nearly 19,000 prisoners and was the site of significant unrest. While the camp started out with the same status as other camps, it was eventually designated a "segregation center" where prisoners deemed disloyal by the so-called "Loyalty Questionnaire" were separated from their families and moved from other camps. (The official title of the document was "Selective Service Form 304A / Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry".)
Note: Dinner will be served. Film screening followed by panel discussion with students whose families were incarcerated in Japanese American incarceration camps.
Resistance at Tule Lake
2017 | 80 mins | Documentary | Japanese-American
Directed by Konrad Aderer
Resistance at Tule Lake tells
the long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese Americans who dared to
resist the U.S. government’s program of mass incarceration during World
War II. Branded as “disloyals” and re-imprisoned at Tule Lake
Segregation Center, they continued to protest in the face of militarized
violence, and thousands renounced their U.S. citizenship. Giving voice
to experiences that have been marginalized for over 70 years, this
documentary challenges the nationalist, one-sided ideal of wartime
“loyalty.”
Resistance at Tule Lake premiered
early 2017 and continues to screen in various film festivals, museum
exhibitions, educational institutions and local community
organizations. The
documentary will be broadcast nationally in 2018 and made available for
educational, institutional and home use as a DVD and other formats
including Internet viewing.
The play
tells the story of Gordon Hirabayashi, a nisei Japanese American who
defied the US government's curfew and evacuation orders. Instead of reporting for evacuation to an "assembly center", he turned himself in to the FBI and was arrested and
convicted. Hirabayashi appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court
(Hirabayashi v. United States) where the order was upheld. In the 1980s
his convictions were finally overturned by the U.S. District Court in
Seattle and the Federal Appeals Court after misconduct in the solicitor
general's office was discovered.
Boston-based Michael Hisamoto stars as Gordon Hirabayashi. In the spring, he will be playing Mike Masaoka in SpeakEasy Stage Company's upcoming run of Allegiance (May 4 - June 2, 2018). Although Hold These Truths is ostensibly a one-person show, the play borrows the kabuki method known as kuroko (黒子, also romanized as "kurogo") which uses stage crew dressed in black who assist in set changes and moving of props during the performance and who may also play minor roles.
The New England chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is hosting an outing to see HoldTheseTruths this Sunday, December 17th at 3pm. Dr. Paul Watanabe, Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, will lead a post-show discussion as JACL members share stories of their families' experiences during WWII. There are still a few tickets available for Sunday's performance. If you can't make it this Sunday, the play runs through the end of the month.
Hold These Truths
Directed by Benny Sato Ambush
Choreography by Jubilith Moore
Featuring Michael Hisamoto*, with Khloe Alice Lin, Gary Thomas Ng*, Samantha Richert*
Approximately 100 minutes with no intermission
Told through flashbacks, Hirabayashi takes us through his early life, challenging the curfew and exclusion orders in 1942. In a virtuosic turn, Hisamoto portrays not only Hirabayashi, but also his parents, college friends, lawyers, military leaders, Supreme Court justices, Hopi Indians he meets in prison, and the Arizona prison boss who can't figure out why he has hitchhiked down the California coast for his own imprisonment. His storytelling is assisted by a trio of kurogo — traditional Japanese stage hands — choreographed by Jubilith Moore and directed by Benny Sato Ambush.
He may have lost his case when he was alive, but Hirabayashi, a Quaker ("God is in each heart, not in a church") and a University of Washington student who was active in the YMCA leadership training program, was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by President Barack Obama. Paving the way to Hirabayashi's ultimate victory, legal historian Peter Irons discovered myriad military documents, letters, and memos admitting that confining Japanese Americans to camps had not been a necessary security measure: The camps, they implied, were created out of hysteria and racism. Full of theatricality and humanity, Hold These Truths celebrates resistance and offers startling parallels for contemporary politics.
Dates
Friday, December 1 - Sunday, December 31, 2017
See website for details.
Admission Tickets range from $25-$73 and if you use the coupon
code BAAFF (via the Boston Asian American Film Festival) it will get you
$20 off per ticket. (FYI, I've heard some reports of some people having difficulty with the code.)
Lyric Stage also offers $10 cash student rush tickets. See website for details.
It seems I’m a bit behind on Boston ramen news. I went to Pikaichi for lunch on Friday and found out that they are closing on Sunday, December 17th. 😢 They announced the closing on their Facebook page and website just before Thanksgiving. Apparently the landlord raised the rent significantly and owner Taka Akatsu decided that he could no longer stay at the Super 88 location.
"We recently received a notice of a major rent increase from the
landlord. After careful consideration, we have discovered that we won’t
be able to sustain our business with the increased rent."
Taka-san and his wife, Ritsuko-san, opened Pikaichi in March 2011 after selling Café Mami in Porter Square to Carlos Garcia (who now also co-owns Ittoku, Wafu-Ya, and Yume Ga Aru Kara) and buying Ken's Ramen House from Ken Kojima. Pikaichi's menu has gone through a few changes over the years but the ramen has remained largely the same and their prices have remained comparatively low for Boston ramen, making it a popular spot for college students and homesick Japanese expats. They're also the only ramenya in Boston to have free parking which has made it a lot easier for people to come from all over to the area to eat there.
In an era in which Japanese restaurants in the US have largely dispensed with yelling「 いっらしゃいませ ! 」 ("irrashaimase"), the standard greeting at all businesses in Japan, Pikaichi brought that tradition back and requires all staff to learn some basic ramenya Japanese to communicate with each other about how many customers are in the house and what dishes have been ordered and entered into the POS system. Although the layout of the space is more like a restaurant than a ramenya, the friend who first recommended Pikaichi to me told me that she felt like she had stepped into Japan for the brief time she was there. Their staff are uncharacteristically welcoming and cheerful compared with the bored indifference of waitstaff at many other Boston area Asian restaurants. Long-time employees know the regular customers if not by name, then definitely by face, although they work hard to make everyone feel welcome.
Staff told me that the hope is to reopen at another location within a few months but no word on where. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a restaurant opening that went smoothly – construction and permitting issues can cause delays – so I expect it will be a while before we can have Pikaichi ramen and curry again.
Pikaichi's farewell message to customers
If you’re able to stop by before the last day, keep in mind that wait times are likely to be longer than usual. Make sure to put your name on the list that is on the clipboard just inside the door. I’ve been going for lunch at 1pm with friends for a while and we usually don’t have much of a wait but yesterday we waited for quite a while. The staff told me they have been very busy since the closing was announced. If you can afford it, please consider tipping generously. The closing was completely unexpected so many staff may not have any idea what they will be doing for work during the closure, which comes just before the holidays. Some of them are long-time employees of Pikaichi.
Pikaichi's hours for the last 2 weeks at Allston location
Pikaichi's last day will be Sunday, December 17th, serving lunch only from 11:30am - 4:00pm. You can follow them on Facebook or check their website for updates on the new location.
Parking
Parking around MIT is very challenging so if you can take the T you should. There are some two hour metered parking spaces on Vassar St. and nearby streets. The nearest parking garages are in Kendall Square.
[The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere] (ESPN)
Directed by Mickey Duzyj. 2016. USA. 19min.
In
2003, Japan was plunged into economic darkness, and people needed a ray
of hope. They found one in Haru Urara, a racehorse with a pink Hello
Kitty mask and a career-long losing streak.
[Wasabi]
Directed by Bunji Sotoyama. 2016. Japan. 29min.
Aoi
is a high school student living with her father, Kazuo, who suffers
from depression. Kazuo is unable to run his sushi restaurant due to his
illness, leaving Aoi no choice but to succeed her father to save the
restaurant. She turns to a magical baseball pitch to find her fate.
[Complex x Complex]
Directed by Miyuki Fukuda 2015 Japan. 24min.
Eighth
grader Yui longs to be a grown-up. She considers armpit hair the symbol
of adulthood, so her classmate Takeo—who has the thickest underarm hair
in the class—becomes her idol. Is it love? A coming-of-age story about
puberty, love, and halting conversation.
[I & Myself]
Directed by Hisanori Tsukuda. 2017. Japan. 5min.
Mizuho
came to Tokyo to make her dream a reality, but things have not been
going well for her. She finds herself thinking, "What did I come to
Tokyo for ... ?" Depressed and on her way home one day, she is stopped
by a lady, who, to her astonishment, is another version of herself.
[Sociopaths]
Directed by A.T.. 2015. Japan. 6min.
A girl encounters an android on the street. Unnerved by the experience,
she decides to follow the android to give it a "message.”
[Post X years later]
Directed by Hideaki Ito. 2015. Japan. 86 min.
In the aftermath of WW2 the Bikini Atoll was used by the United States as a testing ground for Nuclear and Thermonuclear technology until 1957. In 1954 the largest test - the detonation of a Hydrogen bomb in Operation Castle Bravo - resulted in a significant amount of fallout that impacted inhabited areas. Among the exposed in the incident was the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru with a crew of 23, who at the time was outside of the "danger zone" declared by the US Government. While history has documented the plight of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, the reality is many other boats also outside the "danger zone" were similarly exposed. Now 59 years later, a documentary crew in Japan revisits the incident and interviews surviving fishermen, including some from other Japanese boats in the area, to bring to light an ordeal whose full impact has been kept in the dark by both the US and Japan governments.
The 9th annual Boston Asian American Film Festival runs from October 19th to the 22rd. Three Four films in this year's festival have Japanese American themes. I'm very excited that Japanese American filmmaker Konrad Aderer is returning to Boston for the New England premiere of Resistance at Tule Lake, this year's Centerpiece Film. The last time he was in Boston was five years ago when his first documentary, Enemy Alien, was co-presented by BAAFF at the 2012 Boston Palestine Film Festival. Check out the other films here.
It Is What It Is 2016 | 8 mins | Documentary| Japanese-Iranian
Directed by Cyrus Yoshi Tabar
It
is What it Is Filmmaker Cyrus Yoshi Tabar, a first-generation
Iranian-Japanese-American, has a photo of his grandparents holding him
as an infant. The photo captures his first and last encounter with
them. Seeking to understand the fracture in his family, Cyrus embarks
on a journey into the dark and nebulous corners of family history.
Fragmented and cloudy images of his family speckle his investigation
as he talks to his aunt and sister, but discovers that a family’s
narrative isn’t linear and that truth’s elusive.
Dorothy Takahashi, a Japanese American dancer born in 1917, performed under the stage name Dorothy Toy with her partner Paul Wing. During WWII, her family was incarcerated at Topaz. Dorothy escaped incarceration by going to New York with Paul. She was believed by many to be Chinese but gossip columnists outed her as Japanese, costing her film roles. Dancing Through Life tells her story.
NBC News: Dorothy Toy, the ‘Chinese Ginger Rogers,’ Found Stardom Amid World War II
99
year old Dorothy Toy Fong is a living dance legend. She began as a
child after a vaudeville theater manager noticed her dancing in front of
her parent's restaurant. During the 1930's, 40's and 50's, she teamed
up with Paul Wing and would eventually become the most famous Asian
American dance duo in this country's history. Known for dancing on her
toes, she developed a unique, athletic style of performing. Toy and Wing
were pioneers, performing on Broadway and in Hollywood films. They were
also the first Asian Americans to dance at the London Palladium.
Koji
Oshima is the proud owner of a small corner grocery store, but he must
now abandon everything and report to an assembly center. His belongings,
his business – everything must be sold or left behind, except what he
can carry in one large duffel bag.
Up against a wall, Koji
receives only one low-ball offer for his store, which he has no choice
but to accept. The lone bright spot during this turmoil is the
friendship Koji develops with a precocious nine-year-old girl. On the
day of his departure, however, Koji is saddened to learn that even this
friendship has been tainted by the larger forces of fear and wartime
hysteria.
This is director Konrad Aderer's second feature length documentary about the Japanese American incarceration. Although Konrad's family was incarcerated at other camps, he told me that he chose Tule Lake as the subject of his film because he said he's always been interested in the Japanese and Japanese Americans who resisted.
2017 | 80 mins | Documentary | Japanese-American
Directed by Konrad Aderer
RESISTANCE
AT TULE LAKE tells the long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese
Americans who dared to resist the U.S. government's program of mass
incarceration during World War II. Branded as 'disloyals' and
re-imprisoned at Tule Lake Segregation Center, they continued to protest
in the face of militarized violence, and thousands renounced their U.S.
citizenship. Giving voice to experiences that have been marginalized
for over 70 years, this documentary challenges the nationalist,
one-sided ideal of wartime 'loyalty'.
See trailers for 14 films in this year's festival:
Edit History
10/17/17 10:59pm: Added It Is What It Is. Not sure How I missed it!
Correction 5/31/17: Someone just pointed out to me that I had written the Saturday hours were on June 2nd. Saturday is actually June 3rd.
It is really unusual to have exhibits on the WWII Japanese American experience in the Boston area. The Transit Gallery at Harvard Medical School is currently
exhibiting part of a very rare collection of photos from a Japanese
American soldier who served in Europe in the segregated all Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. I checked with the New England chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and we believe this may be the first exhibit in the Boston area to focus on the 442nd. I'm not even sure if other photos like these exist.
Dr. Susumu Ito or Sus as he was known to those of us who knew him, took his 35mm Agfa Ansco
to war against orders. In 2015 he told the Los Angeles Times, "I wanted
to take [my camera] because we weren't allowed to. I like to break the
rules."
Left & right: Japanese American soldiers in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion Center: Ito's family in incarceration at Rohwer War Relocation Center
Sus was 21 when he was drafted in 1940, prior to US entry into WWII. He served in a non-segregated Quartermaster truck and
vehicle maintenance unit at Camp Haan near Riverside, California. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sus was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma and restricted to civilian duty as a mechanic. In 1943 he was selected to join the 442nd and assigned to
the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion,
the artillery unit of the 442nd. While Sus was stationed at Fort Shelby in Mississippi, his family was being unjustly incarcerated at the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas. He was able to visit them once before deploying to Europe and took photos of that visit. Cameras were initially banned inside War Relocation Authority incarceration camps and although restrictions were eventually lifted in the spring of 1943, few candid photos of camp life exist.
Photograph and note to Ito from Larry Lubetski, former Dachau
Concentration Camp prisoner. Lubetski was a Lithuanian Jew who was only a
teenager when the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion helped to rescue him
after the liberation of Dachau.
Sus and his camera went thousands of
miles all over Europe. He documented everything he saw along the way –
from Nazi soldiers and their prisoners (he helped to liberate Dachau) to
the daily life of his fellow Japanese American soldiers between
battles. Sus
was a prolific photographer, taking thousands of photos, many of which
he sent to his mom to let her know he was okay. The exhibit showcases
just a fraction of the collection.
Silhouettes of six German soldiers retreating westward at dawn in Germany. Spring 1945
After the war Sus continued his education with the help of the G. I. Bill and after receiving his PhD from Case Western Reserve University became
a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell Medical School in the lab of Don W. Fawcett, Chair of the Department of Anatomy. When Dr. Fawcett was
appointed Chair of the Department of Anatomy at Harvard Medical School
in 1960, he brought Sus along with him as an associate professor. After
retiring in 1990, Sus, as an Emeritus professor, remained active in the lab until 2014, happy to assist postdocs with electron microscopy, a field that he and Dr. Fawcett pioneered.
Ito on rest and recuperation, posing with his arm around the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Summer 1945
The exhibit was first displayed at the Japanese American National Museum in Los
Angeles, California in the late summer of 2015. Sus passed away just a few weeks
after the JANM exhibit closed. He was a beloved member of
Boston's Japanese American community and of the Harvard Medical School community.
In 1994, the Japanese American National Museum received a donation of several dozen 35mm film canisters and their contents from World War II veteran Susumu "Sus" Ito. While serving in the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team's 552nd Field Artillery Battalion, Ito took thousands of photographs and carried them nearly five thousand miles across Italy, France, and Germany during his wartime service.
In part, Ito took these photos to send to his mother, who was incarcerated at the Rohwer War Relocation Center. The snapshots depict a previously unseen and close-up view of the Nisei soldiers and their everyday experiences. Through the lens of Ito's camera, these young men are just that–young men, away from home and family, serving their country in a time of war. While some of the images capture the soldiers' heroism, most of the photographs show the smaller, human moments of daily life.
Unseen for over seventy years, Sus Ito's thousands of photographs provide a rare window into one person's extraordinary experience of everyday life as a soldier during World War II.
Ito's collection captures the iconic moments often associated with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team–from the rescue of the Lost Battalion to the liberation of two Dachau subcamps.
But these intense moments of war are punctuated by long periods of boredom and waiting. From Ito reading a Superman comic to soldiers stomping on grapes to make wine, the photos notably depict the more routine activities of wartime life. Ito purposefully captured and sent these snapshots to his mother as a way [to] reassure her of his safety.
Today, the collection of photographs stands as a unique record of an important period in American history.
This exhibit was organized by the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, and is sponsored by the Harvard Medical School Office of Human Resources, the New England Japanese American Citizens League, Dr. James Adelstein, Atsuko Fish, and May & Tetsuo Takayanagi.
The original exhibit also contained artifacts and videos which due to
space and equipment limitations are not included in the Transit
Gallery's exhibit. Later this year the exhibit will travel to the Fullerton Arboretum in Fullerton, CA from September 11th to December 1st. If you are interested in booking the exhibit, please contact the Japanese American National Museum.
Hours
Open through Monday, June 26, 2017
Regular Hours: Monday-Friday, 9am - 5pm
Special hours: Saturday, June 3, 2017, 1pm - 5pm Note: If you are not a member of the Harvard Medical School community, please contact Tania Rodriguez in advance to ensure access to Gordon Hall.
Directions & Parking
Getting to Gordon Hall is a bit of a challenge. Taking the Green Line is your best option. The closest T stop is Brigham Circle on the E Line. You can access Shattuck St. by walking through the courtyard behind the Countway Library of Medicine (the entrance to the courtyard is between the Countway Library and Harvard School of Public Health).
There is some 2 hour metered parking along Huntington Ave. but not a lot. Most of the nearby parking garages are attached to hospitals and I'm not sure if they are open to the public. The closest garage that I believe is open to the public is the Longwood Galleria Garage at 350 Longwood Ave. See rates here.
