And Then They Came for Us (film)

Documentary film that provides an overview of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans while drawing explicit parallels to agitation against Arab Americans in the early months of the Trump Administration.

The film begins and ends with footage from an unspecified rally led by Japanese Americans against a proposed Muslin travel ban. Japanese American former inmates led by actor and activist George Takei and Satsuki Ina then tell their family's stories of mass roundup and incarceration. The film juxtaposes these stories with those of photographers Dorothea Lange , Ansel Adams , and Toyo Miyatake , who documented the removal and incarceration and of Fred Korematsu 's resistance and ultimate victory in having his petition for a writ of coram nobis granted in 1983. The last fifth of the film examines anti-Muslim activity following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and draws parallels with the agitation against Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film ends with images of Japanese Americans speaking out against Trump-era travel ban proposals.

And Then They Came for Us traces its origins to a book by photography historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams titled Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II , published by their Chicago based company CityFiles Press in 2016 with the support of the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, that focused on the photography of Lange, Adams, and others. Logan, Cahan, and Williams approached filmmaker Abby Ginzberg about making a companion film to the book. Having made other films with a civil rights or race focus—as well as having been a fan of Lange's work—the former civil rights lawyer agreed to take on the project given the funding support of the foundation. She filmed the opening scene at a candlelight vigil in San Francisco in November 2016 after the election of Donald Trump and also filmed a protest against the Trump travel ban at San Francisco International Airport in January 2017. The Logan Foundation also funded an related exhibition titled Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties at the Alphawood Gallery in Chicago in 2017 and that traveled to New York in 2018 and to San Francisco in 2019. ^[1]

Might also like Masters of Modern Design: The Art of the Japanese American Experience (2019); Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2000); Then Becoming Now (2019)