Summary: Voices of Japanese American women elders are heard mainly inside their own communities and families. They hold the memories of a painful past that criminalized and removed them officially from their existence as “Americans” by President Franklin Roosevelt in his Executive order 9066 on February 19, 1942. The elders re-tell their experiences of incarceration and transformation and connect those to the current movement for reparations for African American and Indigenous peoples. Also noted, the parallel experience of Japanese Canadians. Primary producer: Riki Eijima. Source: WINGS
Manzanar Relocation Center, Manzanar, California. Lawns and flowers have been planted by some of the evacuees at their barrack homes at this War Relocation Authority center.
Original caption: Hayward, California. Members of the Mochida family awaiting evacuation bus. Identification tags are used to aid in keeping the family unit intact during all phases of evacuation. Mochida operated a nursery and five greenhouses on a two-acre site in Eden Township. He raised snapdragons and sweet peas. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration.
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