Going Psychologically Deeper with 'Passing Poston'
The documentary features four former internees who lay their souls bare to talk about their WWII experiences.
In "Passing Poston," filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile plumb the souls of former World War II internees and release a torrent of dark emotions and well-guarded secrets.
For many Japanese Americans, memories of waking up to a world filled with gun-toting soldiers and miles of barren wasteland are like hidden wounds that never fully healed. But the reflection of a camera lens often offers the license for unbridled honesty.
So the tears come, anger explodes and shame surfaces.
"We allowed them a moment of reflection," said Fox from his office in New York. "I've seen a lot of internment films and this one takes it one step psychologically deeper."
The feature length documentary, which recently premiered in theaters in Los Angeles and goes to DVD in September, follows four former Poston internees - Ruth Okimoto, Leon Uyeda, Mary Higashi and Kiyo Sato - in their reflections of past events that continue to shape their lives.
In one scene Uyeda stands on the bank of a pond and compares himself to a white duck splashing in the water with a flock of black ducks. Maybe he doesn't know he's white?
"It's tragic in a way," said Fox, "how they see their lives through this whole prism of racism."
Jewish American Parallels
"I had no idea," said Fox, 48, about the internment. "All I knew was that it happened."
The second generation Jewish American filmmaker whose father was a rabbi, grew up attending services at a synagogue filled with Holocaust survivors. He heard personal stories about the atrocities that happened across the ocean during WWII, but not about his own government's "Nuremberg-type laws" against JAs.
"It was really eye-opening," he said about the Alien Land Laws and exclusion orders.
His own ethnic heritage connected him to JA internment history. Although the Holocaust and the internment are not interchangeable, there are parallels, he said - even in the historic War Relocation Authority photos of thousands of JAs forced from their homes and taken to train stations to await their fate. Often, trains pulled away with countless innocent faces peering out the windows.
"They weren't exterminated, but there was a certain level of degradation of human life going on."
As former journalists, Fox and Nubile developed the skills to find great stories. Fox wrote regularly for USA Today until he met Nubile, a photographer, in Rwanda. They shared a passion for filmmaking, so they formed Fly on the Wall Productions.
A few years ago, they decided to make a film on historical preservation.
"It always fascinated me," Fox said about the people who dedicated themselves to saving old buildings. "You know those people who throw themselves in front of wrecking balls? Why would something so old be so important to somebody?"
So they reached out to historical societies across the nation and asked for personal stories about historical preservation. They were deluged, but one story stood out.
"The Arizona Historical Society said we have a great story for you - a group of Native Americans and former Japanese American internees working together to save the remnants of a former internment camp located on a Native American reservation."
What more could they ask for?
'They Used Us'
Poston was built on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. During WWII, the Bureau of Indian Affairs saw an opportunity to develop the area's agricultural land using the War Department's budget. Much of the existing infrastructure is credited to former internees.
"They used us," said Okimoto in the film, her voice crackling.
Fox and Nubile interviewed about 60 former internees, but many couldn't be prodded to talk past a certain point. The featured four internees, on the other hand, laid their souls bare.
In the film, Higashi's face alternately hardens with anger and softens with nostalgia while she talks about the hardship of camp life and meeting her husband. On their wedding day, she carried a bouquet of paper flowers down the aisle and invited their entire block to the reception.
"Passing Poston" took three years to make with a self-funded budget. It also includes rare video of the internment camp being built. The footage was recently discovered in a vault at Del Webb, the construction company in charge of building Poston.
Research took the New Yorkers to Arizona and California where they attended an all-camp reunion. There, a former internee earnestly asked Fox, "So what camp were you from?"
At first, it was strange for Fox that the reunions were held in honor of something as painful as the internment, but that was where many lifelong friendships were formed. And he kept hearing, "for the sake of the children."
"Many people turned the negative around. And for many children it was like an adventure in the desert."
Fox was moved by stories of former internees, who in the last chapter of their lives should have peace, not ask questions about their place in the world.
"I think they are really grateful that the film has been made," he said about the former internees. "They're hearing themselves in the film and hearing a voice they haven't really heard before."
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