Why is Preparing Fish a Political Act? (film)

Short documentary film by Russell Leong that profiles Sansei poet Janice Mirikitani . Mirikitani reads several of her poems (from the collections Awake in the River and Shedding Silence ) and talks about her grandmother's resourcefulness; her rejection of her Asian heritage as a young college student and her first husband and daughter; the impact of the Asian American Movement; and her involvement with Gilde Memorial Church and her second husband Cecil Williams. In the final segment of the film, Mirikitani talks about the impact of the Japanese American incarceration on her family and on the community as a whole and reads the poem "We, the Dangerous."

The 1990 film was funded by the UCLA Institute of American Cultures and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.

Might also like Lawson Fusao Inada: What It Means to Be Free (2001); Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (1981); Days of Waiting: The Life and Art of Estelle Ishigo (1990)