Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1353/

Introduction to Film

The reason I really took to animation is was the first film I saw was Snow White in camp. You know from all my ten cent saving, of the thing, it only cost ten cents a ticket. You know, so my brother and I we both bought tickets at the mess hall. You know they were selling tickets, you see. But you had to walk all the way, almost across town, to get to the, there's the only color theater, you know, so where they show feature films on sixteen millimeter, you know. 

So I, I...my brother and I we bought a ticket and we went to the cinema, or the theater, and I lost my ticket on the way, you know. So I was in tears, I said, my brother said, "I'm going in so you just go home."  You know? So I was walking home but I traced, this is the honest truth, I traced my path, I walk, I'm coming back, and I find my ticket on the ground. 'Cause I kinda felt I was pulling some paper or hanky or something out of my pocket and it was, my ticket was there.  I ran back. I was just in time to see the film and I saw the Snow White. And I thought, God this was the best thing ever, that I ever seen, and I wanted to be an animator. 


films World War II World War II camps

Date: June 29, 2012

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Chris Komai, John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Jimmy Murakami (1933 – 2014) was inspired as a child to become a film animator by watching the Disney cartoons that were shown to Japanese Americans confined at the Tule Lake concentration camp during WWII. After attending Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, he worked as an animator for UPA. He later founded Murakami Wolf—a company that produced many well-known commercials in the 1960s and 70s—and became a feature film director of When the Wind Blows and The Snowman. After establishing residence in Ireland in recent years, he passed away in February of 2014 at age 80.  (June 2014)

Hirabayashi,James

Life in camp as teenager

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

Kochiyama,Yuri

Hiding what happened in camp

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

Kochiyama,Yuri

Camp as a positive thing

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

Miyatake,Archie

His father describes the importance of photographing camp life

(1924-2016) Photographer and businessman.

Takeshita,Yukio

Involvement in JACL

(b.1935) American born Japanese. Retired businessman.

Uyehara,Grayce Ritsu Kaneda

Importance of education in achieving redress for incarceration

(1919-2014) Activist for civil rights and redress for World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Yamauchi,Wakako Nakamura

Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

(1924-2018) Artist and playwright.

Matsumoto,Roy H.

Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center

(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.

Kosaki,Richard

442 soldiers visiting U.S. concentration camps

(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i

Shimomura,Roger

Receiving a negative reaction from father upon asking about World War II experience

(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor

Yamasaki,Frank

Loss of happy-go-lucky adolescence in Puyallup Assembly Center

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Yamasaki,Frank

Memories of dusty conditions at Minidoka incarceration camp

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Yamasaki,Frank

Making the decision to resist the draft

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Adachi,Pat

Family life in a Japanese Canadian internment camp in Slocan

(b. 1920) Incarcerated during World War II. Active member of the Japanese Canadian community

Terasaki,Paul

Difference between experiences of youth and older people in WWII camps

(b.1929) Pioneer medical researcher in tissue transfer and organ transplantation.