Mr. Tanimoto’s Journey is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2018.
It is an episode of a long-running series called Viewfinder (season 24 episode 4).
The story of the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War Two is told by focusing on the life and experience of one person: Jim Tanimoto, who was placed in the Tule Lake Relocation Center in the north of California.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Producer and director: Jesse Dizard
** Available on the PBS website
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 26 minutes
The story of Jim Tanimoto’s journey and the internment of the Japanese Americans is told by himself, by two members of his family, and by two academic experts. Here are the names of the participants:
** Jim Tanimoto (born 1923) – interned in Tule Lake Relocation Center during World War Two
** Judy Tanimoto – his daughter
** Jamie Lynn Gilmore-Wilson – his granddaughter
** Michael Magliari – Professor of History, California State University, Chico
** Sarah Pike – Professor of Comparative Religion, California State University, Chico
In February 1942, two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive order 9066, which established an exclusion zone in the western part of the continental USA.
More than 111,000 Japanese Americans were evacuated from the exclusion zone and transported to ten relocation camps which were constructed in remote locations further inland.
More than half of them were American citizens, because they were born in the US. The others were Japanese immigrants who were (at the time) not allowed to become American citizens.
Members of the first generation are known as issei, while members of the second generation are known as nisei.
The Japanese Americans were not charged with anything. They were not convicted of anything.
According to the government, they were removed from the exclusion zone, because the government feared that they might be willing to commit a crime in the future.
They might be willing to commit acts of sabotage and acts of spying for Imperial Japan. There was no evidence of this, only suspicion and distrust. But suspicion is not evidence.
Jim Tanimoto and a few others tried to complain about the policy of exclusion without due process, without a charge and without a conviction in a court of law.
But the government ignored all such protests. According to the government, the war created an emergency. The policy of exclusion was a necessity. There was no time to charge more than 111,000 persons and to try their cases in a court of law.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, all citizens of Japanese origin were expelled from the armed forces of the US. This was government policy. Even though there was no evidence that any soldier of Japanese origin had been disloyal to the United States.
In 1943, when the United States needed as many soldiers as possible, this policy was reversed. Now the government invited Japanese Americans citizens to enlist in the US Army.
A questionnaire was presented to all male members of the second generation (nisei) who were US citizens.
Two questions caused a problem for some of them: questions 27 and 28.
** The former question asked if the person was willing to enlist in the US Army and fight for the US.
** The latter question asked if the person was willing to renounce all loyalty to Japan and promise to be loyal only towards the United States.
When Jim Tanimoto talks about this event, he says he said no to both questions. He also explains why he did this. It was not because he was loyal to Imperial Japan. It was because he was an American citizen and he felt the US government had no right to ask him such questions. He regarded such questions as an insult.
The Japanese Americans who said no to questions 27 and 28 became known as no-no boys.
The no-no boys were regarded as troublemakers and as disloyal to the United States. All no-no boys from the other nine camps were transferred to Tule Lake where the administration established a prison within the prison.
Jim Tanimoto was not enlisted in the US Army. For a while, he remained in a camp in California. In 1944, he and his family were released. They were allowed to return to their former home in California. But starting over was not easy.
Even though they were free, they were met with much suspicion and distrust from the white community. They often faced discrimination. Many white employers and business owners did not want to hire Japanese Americans.
Many white people still blamed them for the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though the Japanese Americans had nothing to do with this episode.
Eventually, Jim Tanimoto was able to make a good life for himself and his family as a farmer in California. He still lived there when this film was made. Perhaps he is not so active anymore; perhaps he is retired. Since he was born in 1923, he is almost 100 years old by now.
The story of the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War Two has been told before, in books and in documentary films.
How is this film?
In my opinion, it tells the story very well. When one person talks about his own experience, the story becomes very personal.
It is not only seen from the outside by the academic experts. It is also seen from the inside by a person who lived through it.
This is, in my opinion, an important film about an important topic.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps by Michi Weglyn (1976)
Keeper of Concentration Camps: Dillion S. Myer and American Racism by Richard Drinnon (1987)
By order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans by Greg Robinson (2001)
Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II by Eric L. Muller (2003)
Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II by Roger Daniels (2004) (2019)
American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Disloyalty in World War II by Eric L. Muller (2007)
When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during WWII by Susan H. Kamei (2021)
# 2. Documentary films
Amache: Granada War Relocation Camp
PBS, 58 minutes
19 June 2013
A Bitter Legacy
Director: Claudia Katayanagi
Run time: 78 minutes
2016
Resistance at Tule Lake
Writer, producer, and director: Konrad Aderer
Run time: 78 minutes
2017
A Grave Injustice
PBS, 27 minutes
15 August 2019
Hidden Heroes: The Nisei Soldiers of WWII
The History Channel
Run time: 43 minutes
2021
Armed With Language
PBS, 57 minutes
17 May 2021
Betrayed:
Surviving an American Concentration Camp
PBS, 57 minutes
8 April 2022
Alternative Facts:
The Lies of Executive Order 9066
PBS, 58 minutes
8 April 2022
# 3. Items available on the internet
** The Densho Encyclopedia
An online resource about the Japanese American experience during World War II
** Japanese American Incarceration During World War II
The National Archives
US Government
*****
On this blog
My review of
A Bitter Legacy
(2016)
*****
On this blog
My review of
Betrayed:
Surviving an American Concentration Camp
(2022)
And two additional items about the Japanese Americans and the internment during World War Two
*****
Mr. Tanimoto's Journey
(PBS, 2018)
*****
Jim Tanimoto as a young man
(born 1923)
*****
Jim Tanimoto as an old man
(born 1923)
*****
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