Reviewed by Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi 2001-02) (Originally published in the JETAA NY Fall 2008 Quarterly Newsletter)
The flames are all long gone
But the pain lingers on
-Pink Floyd, “Goodbye Blue Sky”
For all the good they’ve done advancing equal rights and universal peace in the generations since World War II, the U.S. and Japan continue to struggle with charges of insensitivity and unfair treatment of minorities stemming from that era. Two important new films highlight the historical signposts of the Japanese American internment camps of 1942-44, and the growing international tensions surrounding Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine.
Passing Poston, a documentary by journalists Joe Fox and James Nubile, premiered in America this past summer. Its narrative unspools through the tales of four of the 17,800 Japanese-American internees forced to live at Poston in Arizona, one of the 10 War Relocation Authority centers launched five months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. While the camps were devised by the U.S. government under the guise of internal defense, they were ruled unconstitutional two years later by the Supreme Court, with formal apologies finally issued by Congress in 1988 and 1992, along with $1.6 billion issued in combined reparations to survivors and heirs.
Opening with a propaganda film from the U.S. Office of War Information to set the mood of the time, Passing Poston reveals that of the nearly 120,000 people interred nationwide, nearly 2/3 of them were American citizens. Ruth Okimoto, a survivor of Poston, tells the story of how her family first arrived in the U.S. when she was 11 months old. The daughter of a missionary to the Japanese-speaking congregation of her hometown, Ruth and her siblings refused to learn Japanese. “I wanted to be like other people,” she explains, suggesting the irony in the government’s decision to punish those who were eagerly willing to assimilate. “It blew holes in my father’s idealism,” she says, forcing the viewer to ask how one can forgive their adoptive country when it takes away your rights.
Kiyo Sato, another survivor, recalls with vivid precision the day her house was raided: “Agents read my diary and patted my head, and I had to translate everything that was asked of my family.” She compares life in Poston to the Nazi concentration camps in Life is Beautiful, saying, “When we arrived, my mother and I fell to the floor and cried. We couldn’t believe how we could survive in a place like this.”
Mary Higashi remembers the cruel policy of how no one knew where they were going until they got there. Poston was built on an Indian reservation (whose tribesmen were ordered there after the Japanese left), and life at the camps was a different world, with those old enough to attend university forced into a curriculum of “Americanization” classes.
“We had nothing to look forward to…the water was so bad, everyone had diarrhea,” says Leon Uyeda, noting how human resources were so limited that Poston’s cook used to be in charge of laundry. Higashi ended up marrying while interred, describing how her paper wedding bouquet rustled during her walk down the aisle. Her husband’s wedding gift: a luxurious gardenia corsage.
Following their release in December 1944, the formerly interred found themselves with even less to look forward to. Many returned to find their homes vandalized or bought out from under them in their absence. No income for two years meant parents couldn’t buy another home, forcing them to rely on their children for support. And while Poston was no Shangri-La, Okimoto concedes that at least people looked out for each other there. Back in the town she grew up in, the neighborhood kids “would throw rocks and spit on me,” the damage done by propaganda despite their supposedly restored status as Americans.
The film ends in Hawaii with a reunion of Poston survivors and a look back at how the principals learned to cope over the years through community involvement by speaking at schools or by using art as a creative outlet. While they appear joyous, a dark thread runs through their thoughts when asked about equality in America today. Uyeda still bears a strong inferiority complex, and questions whether his country is truly a democracy. “Any time I have a problem, I assume it’s because I’m Japanese,” he says. Others have trouble believing they are fully integrated, feeling forever on the alert. Another points to his “all-white” grandchildren and chillingly accepts the fact that there may be a time when Japanese Americans cease to exist, an attitude directly at odds with our supposed embrace of cultural pluralism.
Where Poston had the interred, Yasukuni has the enshrined.
In 1978, the Shinto shrine-which is said to house the spirits of nearly 2.5 million killed in wartime-secretly added another 1,068 names to its roster, all convicted war criminals. While no emperor has visited the shrine since that time, other prominent Japanese civil servants have, including former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who paid his respects at the shrine multiple times during his tenure, claiming his visits were as a private citizen and not a politico.
Such a decision sparked resentment from other countries, particularly Japan’s neighbors, which suffered indignities under imperialist aggression in the years leading up to and during World War II. They argue that for criminals to be enshrined and honored in the same place as war casualties is both insulting and arrogant of Japan, which since 1945 has renounced war and is forbade a military. Naturally, Yasukuni has its equally adamant supporters at home, chiefly conservatives within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
It was lawmakers among their ranks who called for a boycott earlier this year of Yasukuni, a two-hour documentary by Chinese director Li Ying, a current resident of Japan. First screened in 2007 at Korea’s Pusan International Film Festival (and earlier this summer at New York’s Japan Society), the film-a joint Asian co-production-took 10 years to complete, and manages to be mostly objective in its focus while remaining antiwar.
The film begins with the crackling images of a sword forged in fire. Strong enough to slice through bone, this is the symbol of Yasukuni, made by its last living swordsmith, 90-year-old Naoji Kariya. “My hands are dirty,” he says plainly, back turned to the camera. We then cut to the shrine on the 60th anniversary of Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II, a hotbed of tension between loyalists and protesters. Throughout Yasukuni, footage from this day along with commentary from Kariya are woven through other on-location shots of notable events at the shrine and how they affect people.
Some of Yauskuni’s visitors on that day pay their respects in what look like full military regalia, waving the Rising Sun flag and cheering the emperor. Tellingly, many of them look young enough to have been born long after the war, meaning they’ve never seen combat overseas. None are identified, but their dedication is frightening.
When asked how his fellow swordsmiths felt when the enshrinement of war criminals first came up, Kariya nervously declines to say. A statement by Koizumi is more polarizing: “I cannot understand why worshiping at Yasukuni is objectionable,” he says, calling it “a matter of the heart” protected under the constitution. These words paint the sword as a means of defense instead of a destructive weapon. Such dualities and contradictions continue to define the fragile definition of Yasukuni.
In one bizarre scene, an American who identifies himself as a real estate broker stands at its gates waving Old Glory, screaming “I support Prime Minister Koizumi” in halting Japanese with a huge grin on his face. Public reaction to him is divisive. “An American supports us, we should lend a hand!” one onlooker says, while two more scream “Yankee go home” (in English) and “don’t act so cool, asshole!” Eventually, he is forced to leave without explaining his motivation. A later night scene at Yasukuni finds a single Japanese man brandishing a sword in the pouring rain. Running up to the shrine, he pays his respects and dashes away, catching stares from surprised onlookers.
While the film is directed with some historical background including archival photos and news clips, it is the lives impacted by Yasukuni’s legacy that are the most touching and informative. A Taiwanese man who identifies himself as Chiwas Ari claims his father was “brainwashed” into fighting for Japan and was enshrined at Yasukuni in 1951. Confronting a priest at the shrine, he demands to know how his father and other non-Japanese who were forced to support the war effort can be arbitrarily enshrined there if they didn’t want to fight in the first place. “The souls are in the wrong place,” he says.
Echoing his sentiment in another interview is a Japanese Buddhist priest whose father was also made to fight, ending with his enshrinement. The priest, who says his father’s life was ruined by the war, has tried unsuccessfully for years to have the name removed from the register. “The war dead don’t belong to their families, they belong to the state,” he explains. “There is a perversion at work here…the families cannot object.” No Yasukuni officials are interviewed.
The film’s climax, likely from the same 60th anniversary, depicts controversial Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara leading a rally for fellow conservatives at Yasukuni. Together they sing a song extolling the virtues of “dying for the emperor” and “never looking back,” followed by a rendition of national anthem “Kimi ga Yo,” which itself can be interpreted as a symbol of Japanese imperialism and militarism.
While this is happening, a protester is tackled by a middle-aged man. “Are you Chinese? Go back to China!” he barks. Onlookers stare at the now-bloodied young man, who claims to be Japanese. “How many Asians did Japan murder?” he asks. “This injury is nothing!” Refusing medical attention, he continues to preach as a riot breaks out, with many in the crowd neither opposing nor agreeing with what he has to say. He is then handcuffed and dragged away by the police, even though he’s committed no crime.
At that moment, almost on cue, Koizumi arrives, flanked by an entourage of navy blue suits. He solemnly ascends the steps, bows, and disappears.
Both Passing Poston and Yasukuni are available on DVD in their respective countries.
For more information, visit www.passingposton.com and www.yasukuni-movie.com.
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