"Putting Them Where They Could Do No Harm" (film)

Short film that makes the case for renaming Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown Los Angeles, named after the wartime mayor of Los Angeles who agitated for the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Eschewing narration, the film uses Bowron's wartime radio addresses (voiced by Maciek Kolodziejeczak) as evidence of his anti-Japanese and pro-exclusion stance, juxtaposed with excerpts from Japanese Americans testifying about their wartime experiences in clips from testimony before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians . The film ends with many examples of entities whose names have been changed in recent years due to changing societal attitudes towards race, before calling for the renaming of Fletcher Bowron Square. The title comes from one of Bowron's radio addresses.

Filmmaker Steve Nagano, a retired schoolteacher, made the film through Visual Communications 's Digital Histories program through which senior citizens learn how to make films. Inspired by the name changes brought about by the Black Lives Matter movement, Nagano wanted to make the film as part of a campaign to rename the square.

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