"Build bridges, not walls!" - Yuri Kochiyama
"The work of the Crusaders was a means by which young people in confinement were able to prove that no physical boundaries could stop them from transcending the barbed wires."
- Yuri Kochiyama
We began shooting in 2008, and the film is now fundraising to cover post-production costs.
Interview: Yuri Kochiyama remembers WWII soldiers who died. Director and Cameraman: Chong Lee / Interviewer, Marlan Warren:
Scene from the play, Bits of Paradise: Kochiyama's Crusaders with Ariel Kayoko Labasan as Mary Nakahara/Yuri Kochiyama. Opening Monologue adapted From The Diary of Hatsuye Egami. (Videographer: Michael J. Labasan):
Ruth Hirose Ishizaki kindly consented to an all-day interview at the Japanese American Museum, San Jose (JAMsj) in Jan. 2009. She was the first Crusader we interviewed, and showed great patience as we pored over the "second" Crusaders Scrapbook that she had put together with Crusader Rinko when World War II ended.
Ruth and Rinko made the two Crusaders Scrapbooks right after World War II ended. Rinko sent hers to Yuri who donated it to the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Ruth kept hers at the bottom of a closet for 50 years before donating it to the Japanese American Museum of San Jose.
Bits of Paradise Opening Night at The Marsh Theatre in San Francisco Nov. 2008.
Videographer: Ben Kim
A culmination of eight years of researching and gathering on the subject, Warren takes on a little-known factoid in the history of the war at home. In the play, a cast of seven takes the audience back in time to the nadir of Japanese American morale. A young internee by the name of Yuri Kochiyama (born Mary Nakahara) inspired her friends to start a letter-writing campaign to the Japanese American 442nd regimental combat team to raise the boys’ spirits. The group of letter writers became known as “The Crusaders” and the play, an ode to Kochiyama, comes to fruition onstage as actors read verbatim excerpts from these missives.
The play was a lesson in history for the actors as much as a means to broaden their horizons. “I feel a sense of pride and a sense of identity,” said Jean Franco who portrayed one of the soldiers. “I wouldn’t have known about this part of history if I hadn’t done this project.”
Fifteen-year-old Chanelle Yang, who gives a spirited performance as the young Kochiyama, expressed her honor of playing this role and was inspired by the fact that Kochiyama was in the audience on opening night. (Kochiyama transitioned from writing letters to becoming a crusader of a different type — as an icon in the socio-political activist movement and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 2005.)
Not since Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War (2007) has there been a production in The City depicting the Japanese American experience spawned by F.D.R.’s infamous Presidential Executive Order 9066, which required the internment of all continental Japanese Americans. Bits of Paradise places its footprint on the timeline of a much needed theatrical examination of the Asian American journey.
Actor Jean Franco performing Soldier's Monologue for Yuri Kochiyama in her home.
The late attorney Rose Ochi tells the moving story of how she fought to designate Manzanar as an historical site, and why she devoted her life to preserving the memory of the unjust treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Interview with Camp Survivor Madlon Yamamoto Arai whose picture was taken by Ansel Adams at Manzanar.
This site is for Marlan Warren's film and plays about Yuri Kochiyama.
 |
| Yuri Kochiyama |
Great occasions do not make heroines.
They simply unveil them to the eyes of men.
Pitch Trailer
 |
| "Bits of Paradise" San Francisco Production. |
The documentary What did you do in the War, Mama?: Kochiyama's Crusaders grew out of Marlan Warren's Bits of Paradise plays that adapted the morale-boosting letters between women imprisoned in the U.S. Japanese American internment camps and their soldiers fighting World War II.
"Bits of Paradise: Kochiyama's Crusaders": Los Angeles Production
THE STORY
Before she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize...And before she held Malcolm X's head while he died, Human Rights Activist Yuri Kochiyama was a young woman in love named "Mary Nakahara."
Film Summary
We began shooting in 2008, and the film is now fundraising to cover post-production costs.
To donate or learn more, please contact Marlan.
What did you do in the War?: Kochiyama's Crusaders is a nonfiction short film that delves into future Human Rights Activist Yuri Kochiyama's early years as a 20-year old newly "interned" Japanese American in the U.S. concentration camps, and the women's correspondence campaign ("The Crusaders") that she led to support the Japanese American soldiers during World War II and boost morale. The film melds interviews with Yuri Kochiyama and three of the original Crusaders with historical footage, original letters, poetry, music, artwork and play excerpts from theatrical renderings to examine the making of an activist and honor the compassionate woman who was known as Yuri Kochiyama.
Film Clips
Interview: Yuri Kochiyama remembers WWII soldiers who died. Director and Cameraman: Chong Lee / Interviewer, Marlan Warren:
MEET THE ORIGINAL CRUSADERS!
Crusader Mary Nakahara / Yuri Kochiyama
Yuri on her 80th birthday with Bits of Paradise actor, Jean Franco.
Crusader Ruth Hirose Ishizaki
There were two scrapbooks. One ended up with Yuri Kochiyama who donated it to the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), and the other was kept at the bottom of Ruth's closet until 50 years later, when she learned that the play Bits of Paradise was slated to open at The Marsh Theater in San Francisco, and she agreed to attend with her good friend Yuri Kochiyama, when we invited her. Then she donated that scrapbook to JAMsj.
Crusader Rinko Shimasaki Enosaki
Crusader Patricia Goto Takeshita
Patricia
(Pat) Goto was 11 years old when she began sending penny postcards as a
Crusader in Mary Nakahara's Sunday School Class at the Santa Anita
Assembly Center (aka "concentration camp"). When we interviewed her, she
read from the memoir she wrote in her 80s about her camp life and how
deeply "Mary Nakahara" affected her for the rest of her life.
Patricia Goto Takeshita with Albert Vasquez.
Interview: Crusader Patricia Goto Takeshita remembers Mary Nakahara. (Slide Show By Marlan Warren for YouTube)
Crusader Rinko Shimasaki Enosaki
Rinko Shimasaki Enosaki on her 90th birthday. [Photos by Emma Puente]
******************************
ABOUT THE PLAYS
(L-R) Women: Pisha Warden, Connie Kim, Chanelle Yang, Linda Wang
Men: Wilton Yiu, Wesley Cayabyab, Jean Franco (Photo by Basile Kuo)
BITS OF PARADISE places its footprint on the timeline of a
much needed theatrical examination of the Asian American journey.
much needed theatrical examination of the Asian American journey.
- Asian Week
What did you do in the War, Mama: Kochiyama's Crusaders grew out of the play, Bits of Paradise by
producer/director/playwright Marlan Warren which showcased at The Marsh
Theatre in San Francisco in '08 with a multicultural cast of young
actors who approached the material with deep sensitivity and
enthusiasm. Everyone was ecstatic when Yuri Kochiyama attended opening
night with her friend and fellow Crusader, Ruth Ishizaki (who had compiled
two Crusaders Scrapbooks at the end of World War II with her friend
Rinko Shimasaki Enosaki).
Videographer: Ben Kim
(Marlan Warren, Yuri Kochiyama, Rinko Ishizaki) Photo: Victoria Yang
Asian Week Review:
New play based on Japanese American WWII internment letters
New play based on Japanese American WWII internment letters
With the commemoration of the bombing of Pearl Harbor fast approaching, local playwright Marlan Warren’s Bits of Paradise arrives
at an appropriate time. Based on letters written between Japanese
American girls and women in the U.S. internment camps and Japanese
American soldiers during World War II, Bits of Paradise is a 20-minute piece that is slated to be a full production one day.
A culmination of eight years of researching and gathering on the subject, Warren takes on a little-known factoid in the history of the war at home. In the play, a cast of seven takes the audience back in time to the nadir of Japanese American morale. A young internee by the name of Yuri Kochiyama (born Mary Nakahara) inspired her friends to start a letter-writing campaign to the Japanese American 442nd regimental combat team to raise the boys’ spirits. The group of letter writers became known as “The Crusaders” and the play, an ode to Kochiyama, comes to fruition onstage as actors read verbatim excerpts from these missives.
The play was a lesson in history for the actors as much as a means to broaden their horizons. “I feel a sense of pride and a sense of identity,” said Jean Franco who portrayed one of the soldiers. “I wouldn’t have known about this part of history if I hadn’t done this project.”
Fifteen-year-old Chanelle Yang, who gives a spirited performance as the young Kochiyama, expressed her honor of playing this role and was inspired by the fact that Kochiyama was in the audience on opening night. (Kochiyama transitioned from writing letters to becoming a crusader of a different type — as an icon in the socio-political activist movement and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 2005.)
Not since Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War (2007) has there been a production in The City depicting the Japanese American experience spawned by F.D.R.’s infamous Presidential Executive Order 9066, which required the internment of all continental Japanese Americans. Bits of Paradise places its footprint on the timeline of a much needed theatrical examination of the Asian American journey.
Actor Jean Franco performing Soldier's Monologue for Yuri Kochiyama in her home.
[Director/Camera: Chong Lee]
=============================
Great occasions do not make heroines.
They simply unveil them to the eyes of men.
They simply unveil them to the eyes of men.
Video: Ben Kim
**************************
This
film includes stories of Japanese American soldiers and War Resisters,
who transcended barbed wire with their soaring spirits.
MANZANAR PILGRIMAGE 2013
"We Remember"
"We Remember"
On
April 27, 2013, producer/writer Marlan Warren and a very talented
crew--Stephon J. Litwinczuk, DP/Camera, and Richard J. Wilson,
Sound--embarked on an all-day shoot at the Manzanar concentration camp
memorial site, 240 miles north of Los Angeles.
The late attorney Rose Ochi tells the moving story of how she fought to designate Manzanar as an historical site, and why she devoted her life to preserving the memory of the unjust treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Our film crew were all very deeply moved by their Manzanar Pilgrimage experience.
Oppression and racism continues, and these Japanese
Americans still voice support for all oppressed races and cultures, and
push back against the continued threat of concentration camps on U.S.
soil.
All Manzanar Photos by Marlan Warren.
Marlan Warren reacts to the Manzanar cemetery.
DP/Camera: Stephon J. Litwinczuk & Sound: Richard J. Wilson
DP/Camera: Stephon J. Litwinczuk & Sound: Richard J. Wilson
Comments
Post a Comment