Island Roots (film)

Short documentary film on the Filipino American community on Bainbridge Island, Washington from the migration of the first immigrants in the late 1920s to the present day. Many came to Bainbridge to serve as farm laborers on strawberry farms run by Japanese Americans. During World War II, when Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from Bainbridge and the entire West Coast, many turned their farms over to their Filipino American farmhands to mange in their absence. As a result, many Japanese American farmers were able to return to intact farms after the war. Some Filipino Americans were able to use this as a jumping off point to owning their own farms after the war. The film concludes with the restoration of the Filipino American community hall on Bainbridge and the return of the Strawberry Festival that serve as the center of the community in the present.

Island Roots was commissioned by IslandWood, an outdoor learning center on Bainbridge Island and written, produced and directed by Lucy Ostrander.

Might also like After Silence: Civil Rights and the Japanese American Experience (2003); Leap of Faith: How Enmanji Temple Was Saved (2010); My Friends Behind Barbed Wire (2008)