We the People: The Stage Production (film)

Short film that documents the performance of the elementary school age students of Jan Ken Po Gakko in Sacramento on July 20, 2000. The production is highlighted by a play performed by the students based on Mary Tsukamoto and Elizabeth Pinkerton's book We the People .

The first half of the performance consists of the students singing various short Japanese songs and a telling of the story of Sadako and the 1,000 Cranes by Rev. Nobu Hanaoka of the Sacramento Japanese United Methodist Church. The students folded 1,000 cranes, which are to be conveyed to the Sadako statue at the Hiroshima Memorial.

The second half of the performance includes a play that tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans through the story Mary Tsukamoto, her husband, and their daughter, beginning with forcible eviction from their home to the Fresno Assembly Center and the Jerome , Arkansas, concentration camp, their eventual return to Sacramento, and Mary's later involvement in the Redress Movement . All roles are played by the children. The play also includes three original songs, "We Had to Go," "We Are Children of the Camp," and "Plum Blossom, Bamboo, and Pine." The play was scripted by Donna Komure-Toyama and directed by Komure-Toyama and Haruko Sakakibara.

Might also like The Bracelet (2001); Letters from Camp (2016); Take Me Home: A Child's Experience of Internment (2005)