During WWII, all people of Japanese ancestry were forcibly removed from the west coast of the United States and placed in incarceration camps. Incredibly, high school students at the Gila River camp in southern Arizona wrote and published a collection of poetry titled "Cactus Blossoms". This documentary tells the story of the discovery of this volume of poetry and its powerful words from the perspective of some of their descendants.

Directors Koji Lau-Ozawa and Brynn Saito

Koji Lau-Ozawa and Brynn Saito are first time filmmakers and yonsei (4th generation) Japanese Americans. Both of our families were incarcerated at the Gila River Incarceration Camp, a history which informs our work, whether in poetry, writing or archaeological research. Lau-Ozawa is a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA, and Saito is a poet and professor of writing at Fresno State University.