SAN FRANCISCO — “Witness: The Legacy of Heart Mountain,” a KABC-TV documentary produced by David Ono and Jeff MacIntyre, will air on KGO-TV, the ABC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, on Saturday, May 31, from 4 to 5 p.m.
The original half-hour version of the documentary, which aired in Los Angeles last year, won a 2014 Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).
Interviewees included Judge Lance Ito and his mother, Toshi; Rafu Shimpo columnist George Yoshinaga; Brian Kito of Little Tokyo’s Fugetsu-Do, whose father made mochi and manju in camp; and Patti Hirahara, whose father and grandfather took thousands of photos of daily life at Heart Mountain. Ono and MacIntyre also visited the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation’s museum, located near the internment camp site.
Ono and MacIntyre have expanded the documentary to a full hour, adding the stories of Norman Mineta and Alan Simpson, who became friends as Boy Scouts in Wyoming and later served in Congress; Tak Hoshizaki, who resisted the draft to protest the violation of his constitutional rights; Stanley Hayami, a young artist who joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and was killed in action; and Clarence Matsumura, who rescued prisoners from the Dachau death camp as a member of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion.
The expanded version was recently screened at the Japanese American National Museum and aired on KABC-TV in Los Angeles.
In addition to Southern California, many of the incarcerees at Heart Mountain came from the San Francisco/San Jose area.