Browse > Genre > Documentary
262 articles
Who's Going to Pay for These Donuts, Anyway? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Experimental documentary film by Janice Tanaka that centers on her finding and reuniting with a father and an uncle—one diagnosed as mentally ill and the other conventionally successful—neither of whom she had seen since childhood.
Why is Preparing Fish a Political Act? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography
- Convention and rebellion, Loss of innocence, Power of silence, Power of words, Role of women, Self-awareness
- Available
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."
Words, Weavings and Songs (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Role of women, Expression through art, Power of the past
- Widely available
2002 documentary film profiling three Nisei women who drew on their experiences as teenagers in American concentration camps to pursue different types of creative expression both in camp and afterwards. The three artists featured are writer, playwright, and painter Wakako Yamauchi , weaver Momo Nagano , and singer Mary Nomura . A project of the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum , Words, Weavings & Songs was produced and directed by John Esaki and was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
Wyoming Chronicle: Aura Newlin—Japanese Americans in Wyoming (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Aura Newlin, a Northwest College faculty member and board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, talks about her family history as a fourth generation Japanese American and a fourth generation Wyomingite, then takes the viewer on a tour of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , telling the story of the forced removal and incarceration and of the Heart Mountain concentration camp. The last third of video is a sit-down interview between producer Craig Blumenshine and Newlin that covers her students' knowledge of and reaction to the incarceration story, the role and purpose of the museum and the relevance of the story today and its place in Wyoming history.
You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature-length documentary film on singer and actor Jack Soo . Based on interviews with friends and colleagues along with many clips from his film and television appearances, You Don't Know Jack also covers his time at Tanforan and Topaz during World War II.
Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Empowerment, Importance of community, Working class struggles
- Available
Documentary film profiling Nisei political activist Yuri Kochiyama co-produced and co-directed by Patricia Saunders and Rea Tajiri.
Within Their Gates (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Dangers of ignorance, Injustice, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film directed by Matthew Goriachkovsky and narrated by eighty-three year old Yukio Shimomura. Shimomura tells the story of his incarceration at Manzanar over original music and period photographs and movies, along with contemporary footage of the site. The film ends with footage of Donald Trump's incendiary speeches and images of ICE detention centers, and protests and counter-protests, with Shimomura noting the parallels between his incarceration experience and the present.
Warning Shot: The Killing of James H. Wakasa (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Death – inevitable or tragedy, Injustice
- Availability
Film essay by Tina Takemoto about James Hatsuaki Wakasa and other men who were shot to death by guards in concentration camps holding Japanese Americans during World War II. Takemoto uses clips from Hollywood movies, period documentaries and industrial films along with images of camp newspapers and contemporaneous reports to tell the story, augmented with captions. Takemoto suggests that Wakasa was gay, noting the close male companion with whom he traveled the country prior to the war. After detailing Wakasa's killing, Takemoto lists the other Japanese Americans killed by guards in the camps.
Armed with Language (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism – real and perceived, Role of men, Vulnerability of the strong, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Documentary film on the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and about Nisei in the MIS in general. Written and narrated by writer and poet David Mura, Armed with Language , begins with the forced removal and incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans and the dilemma of the men who volunteered for the MIS despite their or their families' incarceration. The film uses interviews with MIS veterans and their families along with military historians to tell the story of the language school and of the MIS soldiers in the Pacific, highlighting stories of Merrill's Marauders, Nisei women in the MIS, and Nisei in the occupation of Japan. There is also a brief segment on resettlement and the growth of the Japanese American community in the Twin Cities as well as on the Redress movement and relevance of the story today.
Arnold Knows Me: The Tommy Kono Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Role of men
- Widely available
Documentary film that charts Nisei Tommy Kono 's unlikely rise from a World War II concentration camp to becoming one of America's greatest Olympic style weightlifters.
An American Contradiction (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past, Power of words
- Widely available
Filmmaker Vanessa Yuille goes to visit the Heart Mountain site, where her mother was born, to learn more about its history. Through interviews with former inmates—particularly Bacon Sakatani—and local residents and experts, she provides an overview of the mass removal and incarceration and of life at Heart Mountain. We also see LaDonna Zall, acting curator at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , lead tour of the site as it is today. The film concludes with Sakatani leading what looks like a local community meeting in a discussion about whether the camp should be called a "concentration camp."
An American Hero: Shiro Kashino (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Animation
- Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
Short documentary film that uses animation and archival footage to tell the story of Shiro Kashino, a Nisei from Seattle who becomes a war hero as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , but who loses his rank for his role in a fight in France.
An American History: Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Greater Cleveland (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Self-reliance, Injustice
- Available
Oral history-based documentary centering on Japanese Americans who resettled in Cleveland after leaving the concentration camps. Directed by Greg Petusky and Johnny Wu, the film was funded in part by a grant from the Japanese American Citizen's League's National Endowment Fund. It debuted at a screening at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on April 8, 2000.
The Art of Gaman: The Story Behind the Objects (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Will to survive
- Widely available
A short documentary film created by Rick Quan in 2010 to accompany the traveling exhibition, The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 which features arts and crafts created by Japanese American internees while living in World War II concentration camps. The film includes stories about the inmates who created the objects included in the exhibition, as told by their children and grandchildren. It also includes an interview with the exhibition's curator, Delphine Hirasuna, who describes The Art of Gaman' s purpose of celebrating the unique talents of these camp artists and helping people understand the larger story of the Japanese American mass confinement. The DVD release also includes Voices Long Silent , a 1980 short film by Bob Matsumoto, that was also shown in conjunction with The Art of Gaman exhibition.
An American Story: The History of California's Nisei Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Short documentary on California's Nisei veterans produced by photographer Tom Graves. The video was funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
And Then They Came for Us (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Expression through art, Power of the past, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
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.
Bearing the Unbearable (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film on the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, Washington , produced for the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial by North Shore Productions.
Betrayed: Surviving an American Concentration Camp (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Widely available
Hour-long documentary on the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp adapted from the half-hour version used as the orientation film at the Minidoka National Historic Site. Betrayed aired nationally on public television stations in April 2022.
Beyond Barbed Wire (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of men, Disillusionment and dreams
- Available
A 1997 documentary film on the Japanese American soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion , the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service who fought for the United States during World War II while some of their families were held in concentration camps. The film is based on interviews with numerous veterans as well as with their wives and adult children. Among topics touched on in Beyond Barbed Wire are friction between men from Hawai'i and the continental U.S. during basic training; the unusual story of Korean American Colonel Young O. Kim; the rescue of the Lost Battalion , and the continuing legacy of the veterans for their families. One unique aspect of the film is its treatment of the controversy over the role of Major General John Dahlquist , whom some veterans feel used the Nisei as "cannon fodder." In telling the story of the mass incarceration, …
Biography Hawai'i: Koji Ariyoshi (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography
- Working class struggles, Change versus tradition, Convention and rebellion
- Widely available
Documentary film that profiles journalist, labor leader, and former Manzanar inmate Koji Ariyoshi . Produced as part of the Biography Hawai'i series, it aired on public television stations in Hawai'i in May 2005.
A Bitter Legacy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Documentary film by Claudia Katayanagi that provides an overview of the Japanese American incarceration with a focus on resistance, in particular on the Moab and Leupp Isolation Centers and the events leading up to them. In addition to many interviews with scholars, former inmates, local residents (many of whom are Native American), and others, Katayanagi uses actors to reenact some key scenes in the story. She also uses Wendy Maruyama's Tag Project—an art installation consisting of thousands of tags similar to those attached to Japanese Americans and their possessions as they were being forcibly removed—as recurring motif between the eight chapters, from "Pre-War Days" to "Redress and Reparations."
The Bitter Memory: America's Concentration Camps (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice
- Widely available
Early film that provides an overview of the wartime forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans on the West Coast produced by the University of California, Berkeley in 1975. Bitter Memory tells the story through narration and interviews with former inmates accompanied by archival footage from Office of War Information/War Relocation Authority (WRA) films and WRA still photos. All footage—even contemporary interview footage and footage shot at Tule Lake —is in black and white. Identified inmate narrators include poet and playwright Hiroshi Kashiwagi , Mary Otani, Michi Mukai, and Kumito Ishida. The bulk of the film deals with living conditions in the concentration camps—the lack of privacy, the breaking up of the family unit, employment, food and so forth—along with the loyalty questionnaire and segregation . The film is also known as Bitter Memories: Tule Lake , even though only the last few minutes of the film focus on Tule …
The Brighter Side of Dark: Toyo Miyatake, 1895-1979 (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Immigrant experience
- No availability
A 1996 short documentary film by Robert Nakamura about the life and career of Los Angeles photographer Toyo Miyatake . Through Miyatake's personal and artistic life (he was very much engaged with other modernists of the 1920s and '30s), the film reveals the vibrant artistic and intellectual milieu of Los Angeles's Little Tokyo district prior to World War II as well as the impact Executive Order 9066 and Miyatake's wartime incarceration had on his artistic career. Using a camera lens that he smuggled into the camp at Manzanar where he was incarcerated, Miyatake reconstructed a camera and eventually became the official camp photographer, producing iconic images of camp life and the landscape of the Eastern Sierras. After the war, Miyatake was able to reconstruct his photography business and resume work at his studio in Little Tokyo. For generations, he was the community's most trusted portrait photographer, enlisted for weddings, graduations, …
Blossoms and Thorns: A Community Uprooted (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Injustice
- Available
Documentary film that examines Japanese American cut flower growers in Richmond, California, before, during and after World War II. Written and directed by Ken Kokka, the 19-minute film was funded by the Contra Costa Japanese American Citizens League.
California's Gold with Huell Howser: Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past
- Available
Episode 4012 of the California public television series features a visit to the Manzanar site with a group of former inmates. Host Huell Howser interviews activist Sue Kunitomi Embrey , who provides some background on Manzanar's history and points out the administration and inmate areas. Archie Miyatake talks about the photographs his father Toyo Miyatake took at Manzanar and displays the camera Toyo had made at Manzanar with a lens he had smuggled into the camp. The rest of the episode focuses on names carved into cement by inmate laborers, with three such laborers—Goro Kurihara, Jiro Matsuyama, and Gimp Izumi—brought back to the camp to see their handiwork for the first time in nearly sixty years.