Namba: A Japanese American's Incarceration and Life of Resilience (film)

Documentary profile of Nisei activist May Namba told through interviews, narration by her granddaughter, Miyako Namba, and comments by scholars and colleagues she worked with in Seattle. One of the Nikkei Seattle school employees forced to resign in 1942, Namba saw her father interned before she and her family were forcibly removed and held at Puyallup and Minidoka . Years later, she was a key figure in the movement for redress for the school employees and in Minidoka Pilgrimages and the establishment of the Minidoka National Historic Site, while being a frequent speaker at schools and events in her later years.

Filmmaker Emily Hanako Momohara, an artist and art professor based in Cincinnati but originally from Seattle, got to know Namba through her work in organizing the first Minidoka Pilgrimage, and the two women subsequently became close friends despite a fifty plus year age difference. Momohara began filming in 2013, completing the film with funding from a Truth + Reconciliation Grant from Artswave and from the Seattle Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League . Namba premiered on July 16, 2022, at the Truth & Inspiration Artist Showcase at the National Underground Freedom Center Harriet Tubman Theater in Cincinnati. ^[1]

Might also like Rebel with a Cause: The Life of Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga (2016); Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn (2010); Words, Weavings and Songs (2002)