February 12, 2001
Students document Japanese American experience during World War II internment
By Alyssa D. Clagg
As part of a class project, 12 UCSC students have created a short documentary about
the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The students will present
their video as special invited guests of the Japanese American Citizens League during
the group's annual Day of Remembrance celebration February 25.
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| Students used footage of Japanese Americans sent to internment camps, above, along with interviews conducted by UCSC lecturer Marco Martinez-Galarce for their documentary. Below, from left to right, Matt Hartman, Justin Oliphant, William Spencer and Michael Pieracci, all Porter freshmen, work on the project. Photo below: Marco Martinez-Galarce |
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The students were inspired to create the film by UCSC lecturer Marco Martinez-Galarce, who is working on an independent feature-length documentary on Pajaro Valley internees. As part of the Porter College Core Course, the students' seven-minute documentary was compiled from footage of interviews conducted by Martinez-Galarce, who graduated from Cowell College in 1982 with a major in American musical theater studies.
Using four lengthy interviews, the students edited the clips and added war photos and footage of the camps and prisoners to emphasize the Japanese American experience. The short film took three 10-hour days to complete and is filled with the still-vivid memories of internees.
"I remember everything--the hot sun, dust storms, the inadequate schooling," said 65-year-old Mas Hashimoto, a retired Watsonville High School teacher and current JACL president, who was interned from the ages of 6 to 10. "They called it World War II, and we looked like the enemy."
Hashimoto's recollections serve as a reminder of the 120,000 Japanese Americans relocated from their homes and sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed. In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed the order to remove Japanese Americans from the coast.
Some 3,600 Japanese American residents of the Central Coast were denied due process of law, uprooted from their homes, and detained at the California Rodeo Grounds in Salinas. Forced to live in hastily converted horse stalls, Hashimoto's family spent four months at the Salinas camp before being transferred to an internment camp in the Poston, Ariz., desert, where they remained for four years.
UCSC freshman and film major Justin Oliphant found Hashimoto's experience compelling. "I couldn't imagine that situation," Oliphant said of the injustice. "For me, it was something I felt strongly about--it's just amazing what these people went through."
Crowded barracks, food lines, and public toilets are the World War II memories of the Hashimotos. Most Japanese Americans, including those who, like Hashimoto, were interned as young children, have distinct memories of the 1940s and the impact the war had on them personally. Although the video, The Japanese American Experience, captures different experiences, all agree it was a terrible chapter in their lives.
"The government of the United States interned their own citizens contrary to U.S. laws and traditions," Hashimoto said. "It just shows that the government should not do this again based solely on someone's looks."
In addition to describing the horrors of internment, the video illustrates the challenges internees faced as they returned home after the war. Most had nowhere to go after selling their homes and belongings--some for as little as $10. Many communities were reluctant to accept former internees into their neighborhoods, but the Hashimotos were lucky. A close friend had looked after their Watsonville property.
"It was a terrible thing the government did to its citizens, but it was wonderful that the community welcomed us back," Hashimoto said of Watsonville. "After all, the thing to do was to ostracize anyone of Japanese descent, which they did in places like Salinas and Gilroy."
The government publicly apologized for the internment in 1988, offering $20,000 in redress payment to all internees. Hashimoto said the money had little meaning for him, but public acknowledgment of wrongdoing by the United States has helped him heal.
More powerful than a textbook, the testimonies of local Japanese Americans personally affected students, including UCSC freshman Matt Griffin, whose own grandfather was interned. "By hearing everyone's story, it made it more real and made me want to learn my grandfather's story," Griffin said. "Mas told us about the importance of reminding people about it and getting the message out before it's too late--and the tape makes people aware and care about it."
Martinez-Galarce, born and raised in Ecuador, said the experience of becoming an outcast and being ostracized from his homeland motivated him to document the Japanese American experience. When Martinez-Galarce was 13, the country's ruling military blacklisted his father, forcing him and his family to leave behind their language, culture, family, and friends to migrate to the United States.
"When I hear a story like Mas's, it more than resonates with my own experience--it gets my blood boiling and motivates me to drop everything else I'm doing in order to make some noise about it," Martinez-Galarce explained. "If for no other reason, because I owe it to my parents and all they sacrificed."
With his students' help, Martinez-Galarce hopes to interview 80 to 100 local Japanese Americans for the feature-length documentary. He is currently seeking funding to complete the project, which he hopes to distribute to high schools as part of the educational curriculum.
"I believe in America and the great promise that is America," Martinez-Galarce said. "The only way we're going to fulfill that promise is by confronting our demons, like racism."
The Day of Remembrance is at the California Rodeo Grounds in Salinas from 1:30 until 4 p.m. February 25. Admission is free and presentations begin at 2 p.m. Brian Arao, a 2000 Oakes College graduate, will also present his speech on "How the Japanese American community would differ today had Japanese Americans not been interned during World War II."
For more information on the Japanese American documentary, contact Martinez-Galarce at (831) 728-4358.
