The Visioning of Asian America as Told Through the Eyes of Duane Kubo

Film & Other Media

In Person

Japanese American Museum of San Jose

535 North Fifth Street San Jose, California, United States of America

Date: May 24, 2014

Time: 1 p.m.

Duane Kubo, a co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Asian American media arts group, Visual Communications, will present short scenes and clips from his many media productions at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) on May 24, at 1 p.m.

Included in the program will be scenes from the first Asian American feature-length film Hito Hata: Raise the Banner, which highlighted Mako as well as Pat Morita in his first feature-film role. Other productions to be screened include Crusin' J-Town, an early documentary portrait of emerging Asian American culture and the jazz fusion group Hiroshima, and Something's Rotten in Little Tokyo, Visual Communications' direct community involvement media project, as well as the group's critical analysis of the redevelopment of Little Tokyo.

Kubo will also show excerpts from the historic hearings, Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), held in Los Angeles in 1985. He viewed nearly 30 hours of extremely personal and cathartic testimony and edited it down to a two-hour video.

Kubo will also talk about his involvement in the Asian American Historical Photo Archive project, which continues today, and the collection of more than100,000 historical photos. He will also discuss the selection of local historical photographs taken from this collection as part of theJapanese Legacybook project authored by Gary Okihiro. These photos formed the basis for the1992 Japantown centennial celebration photo exhibit, as well as the JAMsj photo collection. And finally, Kubo will end with a description of his latest project -- J-Town Community TV.

Duane Kubo, a San Jose native, is a UCLA film school graduate, an instructor of Asian American studies, and a retired dean of the Intercultural-International Studies Division at De Anza College.

Cost: Free with admission to the museum (non-members, $5; students and seniors over age 65, $3; JAMsj members and children under 12, free).

RSVP Required. Please contact PublicPrograms@jamsj.org or call (408) 294-3138 to reserve a spot.

Asian Americans films