Racism and prejudice during and after World War II challenged what it meant to be “American” for Japanese Americans. These two films, a short narrative and a feature-length documentary, examine the question of “loyalty” and “citizenship.”
Community leaders set out to create a historical monument acknowledging the WWII internment camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but find themselves embattled by local veterans and fierce opposition. With panelists Nikki Nojima Louis and Sue Rundstrom from New Mexico.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
CLAUDIA KATAYANAGI, the co-producer and director of “Community in Conflict,” lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Claudia is a descendant of WWII incarceration camp survivors. Having lived in Europe for five years and then New York City for five years, she gained a wider perspective on American life and history. In addition, being a location sound mixer in the film industry for several decades, has exposed her to the amazing world of filmmaking.
Claudia continues to make documentary films on historical and social justice issues, working with the National Japanese American Historical Society, Tsuru for Solidarity and the Japanese American Community Foundation to name a few.
While seemingly focused on Japanese American stories, the parallels to so many other communities' stories continue to engage a larger audience through the many diverse faces you see in her films. Her goal is to inspire others to tell their stories, in a compelling way through books, dance, painting, theater or films and recognize that we are all human beings with the same needs, desires and goals, so we might as well continue this dance of life together.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
NIKKI NOJIMA LOUIS, Ph.D. was born in Seattle, Wash. and is a childhood survivor of the Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho. Her father was held in Department of Justice and U.S. Army-run camps in Santa Fe and Lordsburg, New Mexico from 1942-1946. She and her mother were part of the diaspora of Nikkei who settled in Chicago after WWII. In the 1950s she returned to the West Coast to live with her father in Seattle, attend the University of Washington, and perform with the China Doll dance company in California and Las Vegas. She was active throughout the 1980s and 1990s in Seattle theater as a writer, performer, and producer of multicultural programs on women’s and peace-and-justice themes. In 1985, she wrote her first oral history play, “Breaking the Silence,” to benefit the Hirabayashi Defense Fund and toured it with Gordon Hirabayashi in Washington state. At age 65, she used her redress money to attend graduate school in Florida and relocated to New Mexico in 2008, where she began a journey of discovery that is still unfolding. In Albuquerque, she is artistic director of JACL Players, for which she writes, directs, and tours readers theater plays on the Japanese American experience. Her collaboration with Claudia Katayanagi began in 2022 with “Community in Conflict,” a documentary on the Santa Fe internment camp marker controversy, which includes dramatic re-enactments by Louis’s performance group, JACL Players.
SUE RUNDSTROM is a Sansei whose families were incarcerated at Manzanar. She was an original member of the Manzanar Committee from 1970, involved in educational outreach and organizing pilgrimages to Manzanar and Poston. In New Mexico she worked with the Santa Fe Internment Camp Marker Committee from 1998 to the dedication of the Marker in 2002, and subsequently worked on programs commemorating the 10th and 20th anniversaries of the marker dedication. For the latter, she developed a traveling exhibit on the Santa Fe Internment Camp, “Generational Legacies,” highlighting the stories of two Japanese internees (legal Japanese residents in America) and one Anglo guard, from the perspectives of their descendants who continue to keep the stories alive and share their own experiences.
- Year2023
- Runtime45 minutes
- DirectorClaudia Katayanagi
Racism and prejudice during and after World War II challenged what it meant to be “American” for Japanese Americans. These two films, a short narrative and a feature-length documentary, examine the question of “loyalty” and “citizenship.”
Community leaders set out to create a historical monument acknowledging the WWII internment camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but find themselves embattled by local veterans and fierce opposition. With panelists Nikki Nojima Louis and Sue Rundstrom from New Mexico.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
CLAUDIA KATAYANAGI, the co-producer and director of “Community in Conflict,” lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Claudia is a descendant of WWII incarceration camp survivors. Having lived in Europe for five years and then New York City for five years, she gained a wider perspective on American life and history. In addition, being a location sound mixer in the film industry for several decades, has exposed her to the amazing world of filmmaking.
Claudia continues to make documentary films on historical and social justice issues, working with the National Japanese American Historical Society, Tsuru for Solidarity and the Japanese American Community Foundation to name a few.
While seemingly focused on Japanese American stories, the parallels to so many other communities' stories continue to engage a larger audience through the many diverse faces you see in her films. Her goal is to inspire others to tell their stories, in a compelling way through books, dance, painting, theater or films and recognize that we are all human beings with the same needs, desires and goals, so we might as well continue this dance of life together.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
NIKKI NOJIMA LOUIS, Ph.D. was born in Seattle, Wash. and is a childhood survivor of the Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho. Her father was held in Department of Justice and U.S. Army-run camps in Santa Fe and Lordsburg, New Mexico from 1942-1946. She and her mother were part of the diaspora of Nikkei who settled in Chicago after WWII. In the 1950s she returned to the West Coast to live with her father in Seattle, attend the University of Washington, and perform with the China Doll dance company in California and Las Vegas. She was active throughout the 1980s and 1990s in Seattle theater as a writer, performer, and producer of multicultural programs on women’s and peace-and-justice themes. In 1985, she wrote her first oral history play, “Breaking the Silence,” to benefit the Hirabayashi Defense Fund and toured it with Gordon Hirabayashi in Washington state. At age 65, she used her redress money to attend graduate school in Florida and relocated to New Mexico in 2008, where she began a journey of discovery that is still unfolding. In Albuquerque, she is artistic director of JACL Players, for which she writes, directs, and tours readers theater plays on the Japanese American experience. Her collaboration with Claudia Katayanagi began in 2022 with “Community in Conflict,” a documentary on the Santa Fe internment camp marker controversy, which includes dramatic re-enactments by Louis’s performance group, JACL Players.
SUE RUNDSTROM is a Sansei whose families were incarcerated at Manzanar. She was an original member of the Manzanar Committee from 1970, involved in educational outreach and organizing pilgrimages to Manzanar and Poston. In New Mexico she worked with the Santa Fe Internment Camp Marker Committee from 1998 to the dedication of the Marker in 2002, and subsequently worked on programs commemorating the 10th and 20th anniversaries of the marker dedication. For the latter, she developed a traveling exhibit on the Santa Fe Internment Camp, “Generational Legacies,” highlighting the stories of two Japanese internees (legal Japanese residents in America) and one Anglo guard, from the perspectives of their descendants who continue to keep the stories alive and share their own experiences.
- Year2023
- Runtime45 minutes
- DirectorClaudia Katayanagi