Northwest Film Forum

For the over 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly interned during World War II, the scars from this traumatic time have not fully healed. PASSING POSTON tells the moving and haunting story of four former internees of the Poston Relocation Center. Each person is shadowed by a tragic past, and each struggles in their own painful way to reconcile the trauma of their youth and find their rightful place in this country. In the wake of this painful past Ruth Okimoto returns to the desert of Arizona (on the grounds of the future Colorado River Indian Reservation), where she spent her childhood years behind barbed wire.

Information about the panelists

Ruth Okimoto and her family were sent to the Poston Relocation Center when she was six years old. At the time of relocation, Ruth's father was an established minister in a church in San Diego. Ruth currently lives with her husband, renowned glass artist Marvin Lipofsky in Berkeley, California. Ruth spends a lot of her time working on the Poston Restoration Committee, a joint effort by former internees of the Poston Relocation Center and The Colorado River Indian Tribes to preserve the few remaining buildings left of the internment camp.

Mary Matsuda Gruenewald is a Nisei, a person born of Japanese parents who arrived in the United States in the early part of the 20th century.  Her story, "Looking Like the Enemy," captures her discovery of the power of her family's unconditional love, her struggle to find her true voice as a person of color, and her search to make meaning of the trauma while reaffirming her belief in America.  Her journey includes a triumphant trip to Washington D.C. and a meeting with the president exactly 60 years to the day after the evacuation from her home on May 16, 1942.

Stan Shikuma is a longtime activist in the Japanese American community, working with the International Examiner, Japanese American Citizens League, Seattle Kokon Taiko, Tule Lake Committee, Washington Coalition for Redress, and the Wing Luke Asian Museum. Stan is a Sansei (third generation Japanese American) whose parents were both removed to American concentration camps during WW II – his mother’s family to Tule Lake, CA and his father’s family to Poston, AZ. He is currently working on the 16th Tule Lake Pilgrimage, an educational and healing journey back to the site of the most infamous of the ten Camps.


 

Special Addition!

Monday's screenings will be preceded by
NEVER AGAIN - A Story of Yaeko Nakano
By Christopher Wood
Filmed and edited over the course of one weekend in March as part of the International Documentary Challenge 2008, this film tells the story of Yaeko Nakano and her struggles during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans were relocated to internment camps across the country. Through her Buddhist faith, her music, and the love of her husband, Mrs. Nakano survived this dark period of American history and now vows that her country will persecute its people "never again."