On Saturday, Sept. 26, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., a special daylong film program at the Japanese American National Museum’s Democracy Center, 100 N. Central Ave. in Little Tokyo, will examine Sansei intergenerational trauma and the enduring effects of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Sponsored by the George and Sakaye Aratani CARE Award and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Keiro, “When You’re Smiling” will feature documentary film screenings and a panel discussion exploring how the incarceration experience affected Nisei survivors and the subsequent generation of Sansei. Tickets are $10 ($5 for seniors and students, free to JANM members) and are available online at janm.org/events.
Emmy Award-winning journalist Wendy Tokuda will host and moderate the program, which includes films by Janice Tanaka. Incarcerated at Manzanar as a baby, Tanaka later became a pioneering video artist whose work drew on the experiences of her Nisei parents.
“Who’s Going to Pay for These Donuts, Anyway?” (1992, 58 minutes) recounts her father’s institutionalization after writing letters to the president questioning the constitutionality of incarceration.
“Memories from the Department of Amnesia” (1991, 12 minutes) is an elegy to her mother, whose attempts for balance and security were consistently disrupted by social, and political, forces beyond her control.
The program will also feature “Children of the Camps” (1999, 57 minutes), produced by Satsuki Ina and directed by Stephen Holsapple. It documents a therapeutic gathering of Nisei who were incarcerated as children. Through their testimony and healing process, the film reveals the emotional injuries that many survivors carried for decades.
Filmmaker Janice D. Tanaka, the event’s producer, will also present “When You’re Smiling” (1991, 1 hour), a documentary that remembers 31 Sansei suicide deaths in 1970. The film considers the pressures, silence, and “model minority” expectations that shaped Japanese American life in Los Angeles at the time.
Registered attendees will receive streaming access to all four films in advance so that they may view the material at their own pace before the Sept. 26 program. The discussion will bring together the three filmmakers for the first time, joined by community leaders Ron Wakabayashi and Peter Gee.
Wakabayashi first reported on the Sansei deaths in 1970 and investigated the circumstances surrounding them. Gee, co-executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center, will share information about support and community resources.