News updates in 2000

An archive of news updates from our home page in 2000:

Update: Sunday, January 23, 2000
As some of you may know, the one person most responsible for recovering the story of the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, Frank Chin, suffered a stroke on December 16th.  After hospitalization in San Francisco, he has now returned home to Los Angeles to continue his fight to recover.  His wife Dana says he is improving every day, and that most of his progress will occur over the next 9 months to a year.

Frank Emi, the wartime leader of the Fair Play Committe, once again showed his leadership by taking up a collection to help defray Frank Chin’s extra expenses.  Last week he took the proceeds to Frank and his report reads, in part:

January 17, 2000

To: FPC resisters and friends

Ref: Frank Chin

Frank is now back home in L. A. Paul Tsuneishi, Brian Tatsuno and I went to see him at his home last Thursday. He is much better, but he still does not have full use of his right leg and arm. His speech is also not up to par yet. It frustrates him to be unable to articulate the words he wants out, but I believe that in time he will regain most of his functions. We are all hoping for his 100 percent recovery … He was extremely touched by this gesture of support from all of us…

Cordially,
Frank Emi

We will be happy to forward any messages of encouragement to Frank Chin, or if you already know how to contact him, please drop him a card or a call.

On the documentary front, we will be locked up in the final on-line editing this week at Flying Spot video in Seattle.  Editor Lillian Benson is flying up from Los Angeles to supervise the on-line.  This is the phase where the pictures, graphics, titles, and of course the interviews are laid onto the final tape.  All that remains next month is the recording of the final narration and additional voiceovers, the music composition, and the final sound mixing.

Update: Monday, January 31, 2000
The new splash image at the top of this page is a still frame from what will be a moving background underneath the underwriter credits for our show. The entire package was created last week by our on-line graphics designer, Tarrer Pace at the studios of Flying Spot in Seattle. No longer does CPB want the blue background behind their logo, now they want a “dynamic image.” If you have the time and the bandwidth to download a 3.1 MB QuickTime movie, you can see how the whole thing moves. With a 28.8 modem it could take 15 minutes; with a T-1 line, 3 minutes. See if you can name the floating images. More details soon.

Update: Wednesday, February 16, 2000
I’ve just returned from Sacramento and our first music spotting session with our new composer, Alan Koshiyama. Alan is creating a remarkable orchestral underscore for our show, 27 cues that make up more than half an hour of original music. Alan’s credits include the original score for the feature film, “Dead Dogs,” which won the “Best American Independent Award” at the 1999 Seattle International Film Festival. Variety Magazine called Koshiyama’s work, “…evocative.” Millions have heard Koshiyama’s music in “Teenage Confidential,” an ABC-TV original movie, “Alaska’s Bush Pilots” for Turner Original Productions, and numerous commercials, movie trailers, video games, short films, and even a theme park attraction on Catalina.

Alan was classically trained on piano and clarinet at a very early age, it wasn’t until he “fell in love and later became obsessed” with the art of jazz when he began to branch out into other forms of commercial music. His talent has taken him to such venues as the Pacific Basin International Music Festival in Hawaii, to the National Concert Hall in Dublin Ireland, to sought after jazz performances at the prestigious Monterey Jazz Festival. Yet the orchestra, what he calls a “canvas for emotion,” remains his prominent choice of colors. Koshiyama studied piano, composition, and orchestration at California State University Sacramento and film scoring at UCLA extension. He is an affiliate of BMI.

We found Alan after a nationwide search. Only then did we discover that he is the nephew of Heart Mountain resister Mits Koshiyama, a key character in our show.

Update: Wednesday, March 15, 2000
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Monarch Films, Inc. as the sales representative for our international broadcast rights.   We chose Monarch based on Mr. Art Skopinsky’s belief in the performance of our show in the marketplace, his outstanding references, and his relentless pursuit to sign us up early!  The result is that Art is taking the latest cut of our video to France for private screenings at the international marketplace for film buyers known as MIP-TV and MIP-DOC, at the Cannes Palais des Festivals from April 8th to 15th.

The controversy over the inscriptions for the national Japanese American memorial monument in Washington, D.C. has reached the boiling point.  Here is some balanced coverage from correspondent Sam Chu Lin as printed in the Nichi Bei Times and Rafu Shimpo.  Also some old business: this feature article on our role in creating the first Day of Remembrance from Martha Nakagawa at the Pacific Citizen.

Update: Friday, March 17, 2000
We’ve issued our first news release, at the request of the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, which will be sendng it soon to the Nikkei vernaculars in California.  We may be previewing a clip as part of the CCLPEP panel at the “Nikkei 2000” conference in San Francisco on April 27th.

Update: Monday, March 20, 2000
Today’s San Francisco Examiner carries a front page article on Japanese American opposition to the Mike Masaoka inscription on the national Japanese American monument in Washington, D.C.  It’s titled “Inscription Debate Opens Old Wounds.” (Must every other news story about the JACL or the resisters use the same cliches?) The Examiner website also carries this misconstrued subtitle,

“Some Japanese Americans blame Mike Masaoka for leaking information that led to the incarceration of innocent people during WWII.”

That’s a new one! Anyway, Kenji Taguma of the Nichi Bei Times provides this background.

The story is basically a re-write of the Dec. 17 I had her freelance for the Nichi Bei Times. Given that we are unable to pay a whole lot for freelance stories—and to bring the issue out to a larger forum—I agreed to let her (writer Yuriko Nagano) shop the story around to non-competing markets. Anyways, the story gets a larger forum.

Update: Friday, March 24, 2000

The world premiere… now there’s a phrase I’ve waited 8 years to say…  the world premiere for our show now appears set.  We’ve received word of acceptance of “Conscience and the Constitution” by VC FilmFest 2000, the 15th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival put on by Visual Communications from May 18th through the 25th.

We’re in the last week of sound mixing at the studios of Pure Audio in Seattle, and all I can say is I can’t wait for you to hear the original music score by Alan Koshiyama.  As Alan so modestly says, he has added hundreds of thousands of dollars to our production value with his orchestrations and the live trumpet line we recorded earlier this month in his living room, performed by Gary Dilworth of Cal State Sacramento.

I also can’t wait for you to hear the Fair Play Committee bulletin read by none other than actor George Takei.  George was gracious enough to say that he was honored to be part of this production, but really it’s George who is honoring us with his vivid read of the key line where Frank Emi pushed the FPC steering committee to cross the line from protest to resistance, and change Japanese American history.  Check out George’s website where he  shares a monthly diary with fans.  Thanks to the folks at Buzzy’s Worldwideon Melrose Avenue in LA for the remote recording session and the inspired idea of how to feed the sound back to George’s headphones to get a special effect I won’t disclose here.

Update: Tuesday, April 11, 2000
We’ve just learned the date for our world premiere at the VC FilmFest 2000 in LA is Tuesday, May 23rd, at 7:00 p.m. at East/West Players theater.

Update: Sunday, April 23, 2000
A quick update on screenings:

  • Thursday, April 27th, at 9:00 a.m. we will show a 10 minute excerpt at the Nikkei 2000 conference in San Francisco, at the Radisson Miyako Hotel.
  • Saturday, May 6th, at 7:30 p.m. Seattle-area residents can attend a sneak preview of the full show at the University of Washington HUB Auditorium.
  • Tuesday, May 23rd at 7:00 p.m. is our world premiere at the VC FilmFest 2000 in LA, which has just posted our synopsis and ticket information on their website.  We are known as Program 27.  We are also working on a post-screening reception and wil post any details when we get them.

As these are pre-broadcast previews, we are asking that no reviews be published or broadcast at this time; there will be time for that later.

William Hohri is offering for publication an op-ed piece on the continuing controversy over the legacy of wartime JACL leader Mike Masaoka and whether his “JACL Creed” should be carved into the national Japanese American monument in Washington, D.C.

Update: Monday, May 15, 2000
Please join us for our world premiere on Tuesday, May 23rd at 7:00 p.m. at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Union Center for the Arts in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.

The screening is part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival, sponsored by Visual Communications.  Click here for ticket information, directions, and parking, and here for the on-line festival synopsis.  Check the upcoming issue of Los Angeles Magazine for mention of our screening in the “L.A. Buzz” section.

The screening will be preceded by another half-hour film. After our one-hour showing there will be a short Q and A session with resisters Frank Emi, Yosh Kuromiya, Tak Hoshizaki and myself, followed by an informal reception in the outdoor foyer adjoining the theater.

The lead resisters in the LA area — Frank, Yosh and Tak  — are treating this as a kind of coming-out party and are using it as an opportunity to invite more than a dozen other surviving resisters to “come in from the cold” and accept recognition for their principled stand.  It will be interesting to see how many accept the invitation.

The new graphic at the top of the home page is a prototype poster design created in just a few days last week by Robert Kato Design of San Francisco.  Robert does all the postcard graphics for ITVS and NAATA programming and we’re honored to have him work on ours.  Click here for a full-page view (78KB) or a high-resolution download (576KB).

Thanks to all who had such kind words for us at the screenings at “Nikkei 2000” in San Francisco and “The Nikkei Experience in the Pacific Northwest” conference in Seattle.  To our surprise, after we left San Francisco the interfaith group that met on April 30th passed a resolution that apologized to the resisters and called on JACL to do the same at its upcoming national convention in Monterey.  Here is the text of the resolution and stories that appeared in the Pacific Citizen and the Nichi Bei Times.

And the Japanese American monument controversy continues to boil.  Opponents of the Mike Masaoka “JACL Creed” inscription now have a website called Japanese American Voice and nearly 200 signatures on a resolution calling on the National Park Service to remove the inscription.

Update: Thursday, May 25, 2000
Hi. Thanks for clicking to our site from the link on the Associated Press story that ran this week. For news media seeking interviews, I can be reached by e-mail. To see the AP story, click hereWe are collecting clippings from across the nation, so please e-mail me if the story ran in your local paper and I will reply with an address to which you can mail the clipping.

Our thanks to the organizers of VC FilmFest 2000 and the crowd that came to our world premiere May 23rd at the Union Center for the Arts in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. The screening was part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival, sponsored by Visual Communications. More details soon. It was an emotional night for many, including myself.

The new graphic at the top of the page is a prototype poster design created in just a few days last week by Robert Kato Design of San Francisco.  Robert does all the postcard graphics for ITVS and NAATA programming and we’re honored to have him work on ours.  Click here for afull-page view (78KB) or a high-resolution download (576KB).

Thanks to all who had such kind words for us at the screenings at “Nikkei 2000” in San Francisco and “The Nikkei Experience in the Pacific Northwest” conference in Seattle.  To our surprise, after we left San Francisco the interfaith group that met on April 30th passed a resolution that apologized to the resisters and called on JACL to do the same at its upcoming national convention in Monterey.  Here is the text of the resolution and stories that appeared in the Pacific Citizen and the Nichi Bei Times.

And the Japanese American monument controversy continues to boil.  Opponents of the Mike Masaoka “JACL Creed” inscription now have a website called Japanese American Voice and nearly 200 signatures on a resolution calling on the National Park Service to remove the inscription.

Update: Wednesday, May 31, 2000
Thanks to the audience for voting us the Best Feature-Length Film of VC FilmFest 2000. Here’s the news release and the festival synopsis. This is an incredible honor and a great way to kick off our year-long promotion of the film leading up to broadcast early next year.

About 200 attended our screening at the restored Union Church in Little Tokyo, making it one of the best attended of the festival.  Resisters James Kado, Toru Ino, and Ike Matsumoto turned out at the invitation of the Fair Play Committee.  From San Jose came Mits Koshiyama, Mrs. David Kawamoto, and Grace and Gloria Kubota.  And organizing things in L.A. were Frank Emi, Yosh Kuromiya, and Tak Hoshizaki.  Two of our crew were there, editor Lillian Benson and location manager Brian Tatsuno.  So it really felt like a reunion and a celebration.  Several of us took the stage after the screening to answer questions.  Grace delighted the crowd with her story of meeting the late Mike Masaoka, who, once he recognized her name, recalled that he admonished her father that “they would never win.”

Afterwards, the Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) hosted a reception in the open-air patio outside the Union Church. Thanks to David Kim at Anheuser-Busch for the cases of, let’s see, Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob, Michelob Light, O’Doul’s and O’Doul’s Amber… we had plenty of liquid refreshments. Chivas Regal was the “Official Spirit” of the FilmFest. By the end of the week I was mainlining the stuff.

Grace later sent this message:

It was an outstanding premier! After all these years, you must feel a great deal of satisfaction at your accomplishment. On behalf of my mother and all of those involved, we thank you. Your unwavering determination to tell this story is a tribute to all Americans of Japanese ancestry.

And this from Frank Emi’s grown daughter, Kathleen, who I feel I’ve come to know so well from her childhood photos inside camp!

The video was wonderful.  You managed to cover so much in such a short amount of time.  Yet it flowed so smoothly.  I really enjoyed the music, it enhanced the video so much.  You spent so much time on this project, and it shows.  Thanks again for presenting us with such a thought provoking and powerful message.

Thanks to the hard-working staff at Visual Communications for another successful film festival, and to our co-presenters, NCRR, the Japanese American National Museum, and yes, the Japanese American Citizens League – Pacific Southwest District/Civil Rights Caucus, for bringing out the audience and organizing the post-screening reception.

The next month will be devoted to … lots of paperwork in support of the broadcast, but also to upgrading this website as an on-line study guide in support of the documentary.  Look for more documents and timelines to be posted as we move to a new design and architecture for this site.   Please check back soon.

Update: Wednesday, June 6, 2000
A new link appears at the top of our navigation box above to provide access to our newElectronic Press Kit, in response to media requests that are starting to come in. Here you will soon find downloadable news releases, bios, publicity and archival photos, and our work-in-progress poster design that has already been used as artwork to accompany a story in this week’s Northwest Asian Weekly in Seattle.

Update: Friday, June 9, 2000
George Toshio Johnston, one-time editor of the Pacific Citizen, now writes for the Hollywood Reporter and the Rafu Shimpo.  He shares his reaction to our Los Angeles screening in his latest Rafu column, “Conscience”  Also Tells a Worthy Story.  One point to clarify that’s often misunderstood: the resisters have never asked anyone for any apology.  I have heard them say they would accept one if offered, but they never sought one.

Update: Friday, June 16, 2000
A New York City screening is now confirmed for Saturday, August 26th, at 11:45 a.m. at the Asian American Journalists Association conventionat the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Times Square.  It’s for AAJA members to preview the work and hopefully write about it when it airs sometime next year.  Thanks to actress/photographer Lia Chang for setting it up.  We’re not sure yet whether members of the public will be allowed, but that may not be an issue as our East Coast premiere may take place in late July or early August at one of two possible New York City venues to be announced.

We also got a call today about a possible Washington, D.C. screening around October 20th.  That would put us in the public eye in the nation’s capital three weeks before the dedication of the National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism.  See our quote in yesterday’s Seattle Times article, “Creed proves stirring — of a protest.”  Watch this space for a posting of our 1988 interview with the late Mike Masaoka, part of the development of our forthcoming on-line study guide.  Also watch for a surprising, long-awaited announcement next week on Japanese American Voice.

Update: Saturday, June 24, 2000
A floppy disk arrived in the mail Thursday.  In the interest of free and open access to information, and with the permission of the author, we are posting for the first time the complete and unexpurgated “Research Report prepared for Presidential Select Committee on JACL Resolution # 7, aka The Lim Report, submitted in 1990 by Deborah K. Lim.  This is a 96-page fact-finding document, commissioned by the Japanese American Citizens League itself to investigate all allegations concerned the wartime behavior of the JACL.  In it you will find reference to the documentation that went into production of our film.  Also posted today are two 1990 news articles profiling Deborah Lim and revealing the JACL’s rejection and rewriting of the report, which prompted a decade of rumor and speculation.  This publication fulfills a years-long mission of historian William Hohri, who manually rekeyed the manuscript and inserted internal hyperlinks to the footnotes.

But the historical inquiry does not stop here.  Next week we will announce the signing of a contract to produce an on-line Learning Center in support of our documentary that will present the ENTIRE text of many documents that we researched in development of our script.

A San Diego screening has now been confirmed for Saturday, August 12th, at the Asian Film Festival at the University of San Diego.  Thanks to news anchor Lee Ann Kim at KGTV and all the organizers of the San Diego Asian Film Festival.

Update: Sunday, July 9, 2000
Last Saturday the JACL at its 2000 national convention in Monterey voted 64-32, a perfect 2-1 margin, to formally apologize to the Heart Mountain resisters and other so-called “resisters of conscience” for the JACL’s wartime suppression.  Here is the fact sheet developed by Florin JACL president Andy Noguchi (who appears in our documentary) and distributed to convention delegates.  We can now share the stories that appeared Friday in the Pacific Citizen by Martha Nakagawa, and in the Rafu Shimpo and Asian Week by Sam Chu Lin.

In a related development, the board of the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation is meeting this weekend in San Francisco, and we were quoted in Friday’s San Francisco Examiner story, “Furor Over Memorial to Japanese Americans: Critics Fight to Remove Name of Man Hailed as Rights Leader,” by Annie Nakao.

We also learned Friday that our New York City premiere will take place sometime August 2-6 as part of the UrbanWorld Film Festival, billed as “the first internationally competitive film festival solely dedicated to redefining and enhancing the role of minority films in contemporary cinema.This five day festival will feature the works of both emerging and established directors from around the world.”  I hear we get to rub elbows with Spike Lee on closing night. They’re working on the schedule this weekend so come back to learn the exact date and place.

Update: Wednesday, July 19, 2000
We now have a date for our New York City premiere and it’s coming up fast: Thursday, August 3rd, at 4:00 p.m. at the Cineplex Odeon Worldwide Plaza, 340 West 50th Street (between 8th & 9th Avenues).  Tickets are $7 as part of the UrbanWorld Film Fesitval, which is making a special outreach this year to Asian American works.  Please alert friends in the Big Apple.

Robert Ito has published an excellent article on the recent VC FilmFest 2000, the Los Angeles Asian American Film & Video Festival, at which we won the Audience Award for Best Feature.  It’s in the July/August issue of International Documentary, the magazine of the International Documentary Association.  Not on-line, unfortunately.

Our posting of the notorious “Lim Report” made news in the Nichi Bei Times.  See the July 1st story, “Groundbreaking Lim Report Available Online.”

Update: Thursday, August 10, 2000
Please join us in San Diego this weekend for two screenings of our film as part of the San Diego Asian Film Festival on Saturday, August 12th.  Tickets are on sale online for only $4 for our two screenings at 
5:00 p.m – Manchester Theater (includes post-film discussion)
6:00 p.m. – Hahn Video Room (includes post-film discussion) 

The film fest website has posted our program synopsis. This is our only currently scheduled screening in Southern California so please catch it while you can on campus at the University of San Diego. Thanks to Susan Ruddy and David Kim of the Anheuser-Busch Companies for underwriting our screenings.

Update: Tuesday, August 15, 2000
In partnership with ITVS, we are pleased to announce that our program has been accepted for the National Program Schedule of the Public Broadcasting System, with a firm airdate of Thursday, November 30, 2000, at 10:00 p.m.  In the hierarchy of public television, this gives us the same network distribution as Ken Burns, Sesame Street, and coverage of the Presidential election.  Yet specific broadcast dates and times still depend on the judgment of your local PBS affiliate.  We will soon be asking you to call your local PBS station and tell them that you want to see CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION in your area.  It’s what we’ve worked for this past decade, and it’s finally going to happen.

ITVS today hired Kimberly Ina as our national outreach campaign coordinator to bring the show to targeted audience groups.  It has also hired a publicist, Cara White, who will soon be getting in contact with the news and entertainment media to arrange for interviews and features.  Last week we hired Ti Locke from KCTS Learning Services to create a 4 to 6 page viewer’s guide for distribution before the show.  Finally, Steve Chin and the aMedia, Inc. empire have signed on to upgrade our website in time for broadcast.

Videocassettes licensed for educational and non-profit institutional use will be on sale by mid-September.  Please e-mail us now to reserve your copy.

And she is tired of hearing this from all the filmmakers who attended, but “thanks to LeeAnn Kim” and all the staff and volunteers from the San Diego AAJA for making the first San Diego Asian Film Festival an overwhelming success.  We all had a great time and made a lot of new friends. Thanks to all who came to our two screenings and asked such perceptive questions, including Dave and Carol Kawamoto and Vernon Yoshioka from the San Diego JACL.

Update: Monday, August 21, 2000
Look for us again in New York City at the Asian American Journalists Association national convention this coming Saturday, August 26th, at 11:45 a.m. at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Times Square, in the Odets & Wilder Room, 4th floor.  I’ll be there to show the film and answer questions.  It’s part of an Asian American Film Festival (scroll to bottom of the link) organized by actress/photographer Lia Chang and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.  We are third on the schedule; for those of you at the convention it starts just as the Job Fair closes so drag yourself over and sit down in a nice seat in the dark.

The Film Fest schedule is also posted on Lia’s AOL homepage and on Greg Pak’s hotAsianAmericanFilm.com website, with a nice comment from Greg. Thanks you two!  And I hear that part of Robert Kato’s eye-catching poster above is part of the graphic mix on the convention program booklet.  I will be traveling this week, but can be reached Thursday through Sunday at the New York Marriott Marquis at (212) 398-1900 or via e-mail.

Update: Friday, September 1, 2000
Due to many requests we have accepted an invitation to return to Los Angeles to screen on Saturday, September 23rd at 11:00 a.m. at the Laemmle Theaters Monica 4 Plex in Santa Monica, 1332 Second Street near Santa Monica Boulevard and Arizona. Laemmle Theaters bill themselves as “the premiere art house chain in Los Angeles.”  The screening is part of the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival traveling exhibition to L.A.  This is a chance to see the film on a big screen and fully appreciate Alan Koshiyama’s original music score and Lillian Benson’s sensitive editing.  Please bring your friends.  Tickets are $10 each and help support the rental of the nice theater.  Come meet Lillian, Alan, co-producer Shannon Gee and myself for a post-screening Q and A.

Update: Saturday, September 9, 2000
Nothing like getting a message that starts with the word “aloha.”

Aloha Frank, Greetings from Hawaii. It is a great pleasure to extend this formal invitation to CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION. We wish to present the film at the 20th annual Hawaii International Film Festival. If possible, we would also like to screen the film for our patrons on the Neighbor islands between November 14th and 19th, 2000.

20th HAWAII INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
NOVEMBER 3 – 12 IN HONOLULU ON OAHU
NOVEMBER 14 – 19 ON MAUI, KAUAI, THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII, MOLOKAI AND LANAI

We’re working with the programmers now on a date.

Update, Thursday, September 14, 2000
Sounds like folks are going to revive the Seattle Asian American Film Festival next month and have asked us to screen, tentatively, Friday night, October 27th, at a location being negotiated in Belltown.  More to come.  We’re also working on getting a screening going in San Francisco, as we haven’t been seen anywhere in Northern California yet. But first we spent the past two weeks working with Ti Locke and Pam Calvert on our ITVS Viewers Guide, working with Kim Ina and Pam on an outreach letter that will be soon be going out, working with Cara Wilson on media contacts, and adding a new update tag at the end of our show that will make its debut at the Laemmle Theater screening next week in Santa Monica.  Thanks to all of you who have said you’ll come down to say hi.

Congratulations to Emiko and Chizuko Omori on winning a national Emmy for their “Rabbit in the Moon.”  Saw Chizu on the street this week and she was still floating on air.

Update: Wednesday, September 27, 2000
PBS stations are starting to report what’s called carriage of our program.  Here’s the very first weekly report, which will be updated every Tuesday.  I confess, this is pretty exciting to see actual cities and dates.  Most stations will start reporting about a month before our November 30th feed date.  We won’t have completely accurate information until November 14th.

11/16/2000 9:00 PM CT WKNO MEMPHIS TN
11/30/2000 9:00 PM CT WKNO MEMPHIS TN
11/30/2000 10:00 PM ET WNET NEW YORK NY
12/1/2000 2:00 AM ET WPTD DAYTON OH
12/1/2000 5:00 AM ET WPTD DAYTON OH
12/1/2000 8:00 PM MT KAID BOISE ID
12/1/2000 8:00 PM MT KIPT TWIN FALLS ID
12/1/2000 8:00 PM MT KCDT COUER D’ALENE ID
12/1/2000 8:00 PM MT KUID MOSCOW ID
12/1/2000 8:00 PM MT KISU IDAHO FALLS- POCATELLO ID

Thank you New York City for taking us live off the National Program Schedule.  If you live in Dayton, just set your VCR’s I guess.  Or go to Cleveland for our screening at the Ohio Independent Film Festival.  Check our new SCREENINGS link above to check for new festival  showings near you. We are working around the clock right now on our forthcoming PBS.ORG website.  Our sneak preview page will be posted there within days; PBS Online has set November 20th as the date for our new site to go live.  Kim Ina and I are working on campus preview screenings in mid-November in San Francisco, San Jose, and other cities.  And watch your mail for a tune-in postcard and an outreach packet from ITVS.  If you don’t receive one and would like one, email us.

Update: Sunday, October 1, 2000
Just got a phone message that we won first place, documentary category, in the George Sidney Independent Film Competition at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.  They screen Oct. 26 through Nov. 5th.  More details when we speak to them.

Update: Wednesday, October 4, 2000
Portland is now added to our film festival list, and thanks to Kim Ina community screenings are now taking shape in San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento/Florin for the week of November 15-19.  The Hawaii Film Festival has set two dates, the second of which is penciled in for Nov. 10th depending on whether I can make it out there.  San Luis Obispo has set their date for Nov. 4th, the day they present us with the George Sidney Independent Film Competition award for Best Documentary.  Check out all the Screenings and Community Previews.

The PBS carriage report is still very preliminary, but it shows that KQED in San Francisco will carry us at 11:00 p.m. on November 30th.  And thanks to Professor Eric Muller for helping line up the PBS stations in Wyoming and in North Carolina, his hometown, and persuading both outlets to consider using him on a local program to follow the national broadcast.  If you would like to help advance your own group’s goals and outreach, partnering with your local PBS station on our broadcast is a great way to get some visibility in your community.

Watch your mail for a tune-in postcard and an outreach packet from ITVS.  If you don’t receive one and would like one, email us.

Update: Sunday, October 8, 2000
Thanks to Kim Ina and various film festival directors, a pre-broadcast press and outreach tour is shaping up for us.

Nov. 4         San Luis Obispo, CA (San Luis Obispo International Film Festival)
Nov. 5         Portland, OR (Northwest Film and Video Festival)
Nov. 8         Cleveland, OH (Ohio Independent Film Festival, with Cleveland JACL panel to follow)
Nov. 10       Honolulu, HI (Hawaii International Film Festival)
Nov. 15       San Jose, CA (San Jose State University) – tentative
Nov. 16       San Francisco, CA (National Japanese American Historical Society and San
Francisco State University) – tentative
Nov. 19       Sacramento, CA (Florin JACL) – tentative
Nov.  24-26  Bainbridge, Bellingham, Bremerton, Olympia, Spokane, WA (Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity) -tentative

Download the Acrobat .PDF flyer created by Johnny Wu for the Cleveland JACL panel to follow our Ohio Film Fest screening.  Their chapter president is Gary Yano, who grew up with me throughout the 1950’s on East 81st Street in the Hough District, next to the Cleveland Buddhist Church.

Update: Wednesday, October 11, 2000
Glad to see that the latest PBS carriage report shows that our hometown PBS station, KCTS, will carry our show on Dec. 12th.  Stations in Arkansas, once home to the Rohwer and Jerome concentration camps, have also come on board.

Update: Saturday, October 14, 2000
We now have details for you on HOW TO ORDER A TAPE licensed for use by educational institutions and nonprofit organizations.  They are now available for purchase at $265 each.  Shipping is waived on all orders placed on or before November 30th.   Please make out checks to   “C & C Video” and send with your mailing address to:

Resisters.com Productions
3811 S. Horton St.
Seattle, WA 98144

Home video editions will be available starting December 1st.   Check back for more information.For information about international broadcast rights, please contact Art Skopinsky at Monarch Films, 1-888-229-4260.

The 20th annual Hawaii International Film Festival has just announced they have nominated CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION for the Golden Maile Award for Best Documentary Film. The Jury this year is composed of Paul Yi, Temuera Morrison, Yuka Sakano, Gayle Lake and Freida Lee Mock. The Jury screening is scheduled to be at the Hawaii Convention Centre on November 5th, 2000 at 12:15pm.

Update: Wednesday, October 18, 2000
Quite a few new stations to report.  See our PBS carriage report.  Also more dates and festival synopses posted on our Screenings page.  Thanks Seattle Mariners for a great season, kept me occupied all summer while working on this site.

Update: Friday, October 20, 2000
Almost as a footnote, the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival called today to say we won BEST DOCUMENTARY at the recent September 2000 festival in Santa Monica.

Update: Friday, November 10, 2000
Aloha from Waikiki where we’ve been nominated for Best Documentary at the Hawaiian International Film Festival and will be speaking tomorrow at a reception tomorrow co-sponsored by Hawaii JACL, AAJA and many others. The community outreach campaign is well underway now, especially in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity; in Wyoming, thanks to the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation, in North Carolina, thanks to Prof. Eric Muller, and in Northern California, thanks to many groups as seen on our SCREENINGS page.

In Hawaii, please join us on Saturday, Nov. 11, at 2 p.m. for: “Patriotism, Loyalty and Dissent,” co-sponsored by the Japanese American Citizens League of Honolulu, the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, Asian American Journalists Association-Hawaii, University of Hawaii Ethnic Studies Department and the Office of Multicultural Services at UH.  It’s at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.

In Wyoming, organized by Ann Noble of the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation:
1) Sheridan. November 19, 2000 10:00 a.m. at Mohns Center, Sheridan College. Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
2) Casper. November 17, 2000 7:00 p.m. at Leik Auditorium, Health ScienceBuilding, Casper College, Casper. Sponsored by the Natrona County Grassroots Project and Casper College Multi-Cultural Film Festival.
3) Powell. November 21, 2000 7:00 p.m. at the Homesteader Museum. Sponsored by the Homesteader Museum and the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation.
4) Pinedale. November 28, 2000 10:00 a.m. Pinedale High School Auditorium.  Sponsored by the Museum of the Mountain Man and the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation.

In North Carolina, organized by Eric Muller:
1) Duke Law School, 11/16 (sponsored by the Asian Law Students Association);
2) University of North Carolina Law School, 11/15 (co-sponsored by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the University of North Carolina Law Review);
3) University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, 12/6 (sponsored by the Program in Asian Studies at UNC-CH); and
4) a screening at Duke at a time in November still to be determined, to be sponsored by the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute at Duke University).

And one more chance to see us in New York City. The NewFilmmakers Anthology series has booked us for Wednesday, November 15, 2000, 8:00 p.m. We’re the feature presentation for the NewDocFilmmakers series, “our bi-monthly focus on today’s most compelling and most innovative documentary films.”  Thanks to Vivian Huang at Asian CineVision for recommending us.  The program starts with NewFilmmakers Yoga class at 5:00 p.m.!  They’re located at 32 Second Avenue at 2nd Street.

Click through to our Screenings and Community Previews page for time, place and other details.

Nov. 10-11     Honolulu, HI (Hawaii International Film Festival)*
Nov. 15     San Jose, CA (San Jose State University)*
Nov. 16     San Francisco, CA (National Japanese American Historical Society and San
Francisco State University Performing Arts Center)*
Nov. 17     Denver, CO (University of Colorado/Making Waves)
Nov. 19     Sacramento, CA (Florin JACL)*

Add to the above these dates set up by Kate Boyd of the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity, representing the merger of the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harrassment and the Coalition for Human Dignity.

BELLINGHAM, WA – Wednesday, November 15, 2000
Whatcom Human Rights Task Force, with panelists:

  • Professor Midori Takagi will speak about the continuing cultural impact of internment on west-coast Japanese-Americans
  • Professor Dan First-Scout Rowe, a Vietnam Vet and longtime pacifist will discuss the similar and different experiences among Native Americans and Japanese Americans in the military (and interned, whether in camps or reservations) during WW2 and Vietnam
  • Charles Swett, a local activist, will reflect on his incarceration as a C.O. during WW2, and relate that experience to his lifelong commitment to civil rights and social change.
  • David Hunter will address questions of constitutional law and the draft.  Mr. Hunter spent years during the Vietnam war counseling and defending Draft resisters in the Northwest..

The event, which is free, includes a reception, a screening of the film, and a panel presentation and question period. 7pm, Nov 15th. Science Lecture Hall 130, WWU Campus. Free Parking in lot 14G.

BREMERTON, WA – Thursday, November 16, 2000
Kitsap Human Rights Network, with panelists Fumi Hayashida and co-producer Shannon Gee.
VANCOUVER, WA – Thursday, November 16, 2000
Coalition Against Hate
WYOMING – Friday, November 17, 2000
Wyoming Grassroots Project
SPOKANE, WA – November 15, 17, 22, 2000
Spokane Human Rights Commission
ST. MARY’S, ID – Friday, November 24, 2000
MOSCOW, ID – Wednesday, November 29, 2000

Latah Human Rights Task Force

Update: Saturday, November 25, 2000
The one-week countdown has started to our national PBS broadcast, to be seen in these major markets on Thursday, November 30th:

at 9:00 PM
KDTN DALLAS- FORT WORTH, TX 
KAWB MINNEAPOLIS- ST. PAUL, MN 


at 10:00 PM 
WNET NEW YORK, NY
KVCR SAN BERNARDINO, CA serving Riverside, Pasadena, Long Beach, Pomona
KHET HONOLULU, HI
KAET PHOENIX, AZ 

at 11:00 PM
KQED SAN FRANCISCO- OAKLAND- SAN JOSE, CA
KVIE SACRAMENTO-STOCKTON-MODESTO, CA 

Stations in Washington and Oregon states, and in Atlanta, have scheduled the show for December 11th and 12th.  Washington, DC is on December 23rd.  See the complete broadcast schedule for the station nearest you.  If your city does not appear, your local PBS affiliate may be holding it for later broadcast, in which case please contact them to let them know of your interest.  Find your local PBS station here.  Here’s how we’re described in the new PBS email newsletter:

CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION Thursday, November 30, 2000 (10-11:00 pm) This award-winning and controversial documentary reveals the untold story of the largest organized resistance to the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, and the suppression of that resistance by Japanese-American leaders. (CC, Stereo)

ITVS has created a new 30-second Quickime Preview for our broadcast that will air on PBS stations.  It was cut by producer Carl Jacobs of Minneapolis, using the original soundtrack theme composed by Alan Koshiyama.  For those who haven’t seen us yet, this is your first chance to hear Alan’s terrific music.

Our new PBS Online website has just gone live atwww.pbs.org/conscience.  Please check it out and send a comment, compliment or complaint via the Talkback page.  The focus of thisResisters.com site will now shift to a two-fold mission: to support the PBS Online site with additional documentation and updates on news, reviews and upcoming screenings and appearances, and to take orders for videocassettes.

Our home videos are now available through this website.  Here is the look of the 4-color VHS sleeve, created by Robert Kato Design of San Francisco, which we just managed to finish in the hour before the San Francisco community premiere.  Click on the image for a close-up view (729 KB).

And our final wall poster is now being produced by Ted Tomita at West Coast Printers in Seattle.  Thanks to David Kim at Anheuser-Busch for supporting this printing.  Click on the image for a close-up view (870 KB).

Some recent interviews:

And yes, thanks, it was nice to finally get some sleep this holiday weekend.  But that won’t last when the new week starts.

The University of Chicago Press has just posted a sample chapter and other pre-publication information on Professor Eric Muller’s forthcoming book, Free to Die for their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II by Eric Muller (forthcoming from University of Chicago Press in August 2001).  Our deep thanks to Eric for arranging screenings in North Carolina and Duke, and coverage on Wyoming Public Radio.

AWARDS:
BEST FEATURE FILM: VC FilmFest 2000, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival
BEST DOCUMENTARY: San Luis Obispo International Film Festival
BEST DOCUMENTARY: New York International Independent Film & Video Festival
BEST OF FESTIVAL: Vermont International Film Festival (War and Peace category)
BEST MUSIC SCORE: Emerald City Awards, Seattle

Update: Friday, December 1, 2000
Thanks for tuning in last night for our PBS broadcast premiere in selected markets. 
And thanks for visiting if you were directed here by ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, KCTS Connects, the San Jose Mercury-News or other media outlets.  To hear our interview with Robert Siegel on National Public Radio’s ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, make sure you have the Real Player plug-in andclick here.  The first reviews are in.  Please send us links to other reviews in your local paper:

Update: Tuesday, December 5, 2000
The broadcast of our show, as I had hoped, is helping us find other resisters we’d been looking for.  That was the case while waiting at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin last month, and editor Craig Gima started researching leads for Eddie Yanagisako, one of the two authors of the “Song of Cheyenne” in our show.  I was able to contact his daughter just before catching a flight home, and turned over the number to a reporter who was able to go talk to Mr. Yanagisako for this front-page story, The Resisters,” by Treena Shapiro, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 30th.  

We’ve just learned WGBH/Boston has scheduled our show for February 18, 2001, on Channel 44, with a community screening a few weeks before.  Thanks to Margie Yamamoto of WGBH.

We’ve clarified the prices of tapes for high schools and public libraries on our Orderspage.  Also new today is a Frequently Asked Questions page, with the real questions you want answered… like why weren’t we seen in LA and Chicago, and where can I get a copy of the courtroom photo?

Update: Friday, December 8, 2000
Seattle’s newspaper guild may be on strike, but thanks to the Post-Intelligencer’s striking TV critic, John Levesque, for reviewing us in the guild’s Seattle Union Record, “Documentary explodes myth about Japanese-American internment.”  If you’re in Seattle, listen for us on KUOW-FM today at 2:00 p.m., and tomorrow on KCMU-FM live at 7:30 a.m. and on my old alma mater, KIRO Newsradio 710, on Bob Pittman’s “Legal Line” from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Update: Tuesday, December 12, 2000
Today’s the day for our hometown broadcast premiere in Seattle.  Listen for us live at 6:35 a.m. this morning on KIRO Newradio 710, interviewed by an old colleague, Gregg Hersholt.

Update: Monday, December 18, 2000
Due to several requests we’ve made our home videos available through select retail outlets: in San Francisco at the National Japanese American Historical Society; in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum Store; and in Seattle at the Channel 9 Store at Rainier Square, and at David Ishii Bookseller, 212 First Avenue S. in Pioneer Square.  If you come to David’s store you might even find me there having lunch.  The primary outlet is calling Transit Media at 1-800-343-5540, or by direct mail available through this website.  Our 4-color VHS sleeve was created by Robert Kato Design of San Francisco; click on the image for a close-up view (729 KB).

Chicago PBS station WTTW has just scheduled us for January 2nd at 10:00 p.m. CST. Thanks for those who have called the station to request it.  See the complete broadcast schedule for the station nearest you.  If your city does not appear, your local PBS affiliate may be holding it for later broadcast, in which case please contact them to let them know of your interest.  Find your local PBS station here.

For a streaming video clip of myself and Minidoka resister Frank Yamasaki, check out this RealPlayer clip from our November 30th KCTS Connects interview with Enrique Cerna on the Seattle PBS station.  On the RealPlayer menu bar move the slider 13 minutes and 30 seconds into the 29:15 minute show.  We appear after the glass harmonica player.

Just catching up to articles on our Seattle premiere in The Morning News Tribune of Tacoma by Ernest Jasmin and in the currently non-union Seattle Times.