On Saturday afternoon, 2:15-3:15pm, a special viewing of the documentary film, “Removed By Force: The Eviction of Hawaiʻi’s Japanese American During WWII” will be shown for those who are interested. This is a one-hour film that highlights personal accounts of those who were affected, produced by Bill Kaneko, former president of the Honolulu Japanese American Citizens League, and Kahala Sunrise Rotarian Ryan Kawamoto. Small donations $5 to The Rotary Foundation will be appreciated.
While the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is well known to many, a new documentary tells the lesser-known story of those in Hawaiʻi who were kicked out of their homes because of their ethnicity — but who were never imprisoned. “It’s an untold story, but I think the Hawaiʻi community recognizes that it’s important to remember these wartime incidents and how it relates to civil rights in the current day,” Kaneko said in an interview.
About 2,000 Japanese Americans from Hawaiʻi were interned during WWII. The grant-supported film memorialized the experiences of 1,500 other people of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly removed from their homes, but who were never sent to an internment camp. The film, which took two years to create, tells the stories of three families: the Tanaka family, the Uyeda family and the Nishioka family. Most of the people interviewed in the film were kids of the parents who experienced eviction, Kaneko said, adding that the film crew interviewed a family member who is 106 years old.
There is a short mention about Rotary in the film, as members of the Nishioka family were/are Rotarians.