Six Weddings and a Dress (film)

Short documentary film centering on Chiyomi Ogawa, a Nisei woman who had been incarcerated in Manzanar , and her wedding dress, which was subsequently used by five other women in the early postwar years.

Born as Chiyomi Marumoto in 1924, Ogawa and her family lived in the in fishing community of |Terminal Island , where her father was a fishing boat captain. She was sent to Japan to be educated as a child and returned to the U.S. shortly before the outbreak of war. When war came, her father was among the Issei who were arrested and interned. The rest of the family was subsequently incarcerated in Manzanar. While at Manzanar, she married James Kaz Ogawa, who came from a neighboring family on Terminal Island. For their March 26, 1944, wedding in Manzanar, Chiyomi's "Auntie Nui," a seamstress, made her wedding dress out of materials ordered from the Montgomery Ward catalog. Subsequently, the dress was used by five other women who married between 1947 and 1950, all of whom lived in the Pasadena, California, area along with the Ogawas.

The film is built around an interview with Ogawa, along with with various members of her family, and includes scenes of a traveling exhibition built around the dress. Filmmaker Steve Nagano's father, Rev. |Paul Nagano , married several of the couples who used the dress.

Might also like Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn (2010); Words, Weavings and Songs (2002); American Fish (1995)