Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Andy Frazer is normally an unassuming software professional down in California’s Silicon Valley. But due to a passion for photography and a series of interconnected events, he has taken up a very special cause and turned it into a project centering on Japanese-American World War II internees. Frazer, a Caucasian man, became interested in internees in 2006 after photographing San Jose’s annual Day of Remembrance event, which commemorates Roosevelt’s 1942 executive internment Order 9066. After meeting numerous internees at the Day of Remembrance, Frazer began to learn more about the wartime internment, and developed a strong interest in internees’ lives and stories both during and after the war. The result is his web-based story archive and image gallery called Kioku: Portraits of Japanese-American Internment. Employing visual style similar to that of Richard Avedon’s “In the American West”, Frazer has compiled a striking set of portraits of Japanese-American internees as they are today. But some of their faces seem to reflect how they felt as younger men and women unjustly imprisoned by their own government. At the link, you’ll be able to learn more about the project, and read in interview with Frazer. (Nichi Bei Weekly – Wartime Internee Portrait Project) And the pictures and stories in Kioku: Portraits of Japanese-American Internment can be seen and read here.
Continue reading
“’Drama in the Delta’ is a non-profit, educational 3D role-playing video game that puts the player into the experiences of two Arkansas concentration camps where the U.S. government interned 15,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.” If there is an internet rule that says you can make a video game out of any topic or scenario, this certainly qualifies. Collaborators from the University of San Diego’s Department of Theatre and Dance and the San Diego Supercomputer Center are developing a video game called “Drama in the Delta”, which is intended to be an immersive first-player role-playing experience recreating what it was like to be an internee at the Rohwer and Jerome Relocation Centers in Arkansas in 1944. When the game is completed in 2013, you’ll be able to play as a number of characters, including one of four teenaged Nisei girls. In our estimation, this is a pretty daring, ambitious and touchy construct for a video game. But you can actually judge for yourself, as the 292MB prototype is available right now for Windows-only download. In fact, we’d be interested to know what internees themselves think about this project and actual game play. (Chronicle of Higher Education – Arkansas Nisei RPG) And here is the official website: Drama in the Delta.
Continue reading
[youtube]SGGYBbVxmmw[/youtube] Goh Nakamura is a singer / songwriter hailing out of Saratoga, California. Most know him as a “folk-ish” musician, but little know his past as a shredding guitar player. He attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston straight from high school and learned with some of the best in the country. Goh Nakamura on guitar. The idea for this short film came from knowing that Goh can play intense solos, but most of you will never see him perform them. The video was shot at Hakone Gardens, the first and oldest Asian and Japanese Estate in the West, and not far from Goh Nakamura’s residence.
Continue reading
I’ve been seeing this, and well, finally will post a tiny something about it and it’s pretty much a “duh” but 70 years later, it comes out. This was in the Times, but I saw a bit more yesterday elsewhere. Here’s a couple of quotes. Basically, this long gone Fahy guy kept 110,000 Japanese Americans in prison camp and should be branded a war criminal. “Katyal said Tuesday that Charles Fahy, an appointee of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, deliberately hid from the court a report from the Office of Naval Intelligence that concluded the Japanese Americans on the West Coast did not pose a military threat.” “Scholars and judges have denounced the World War II rulings as among the worst in the court’s history, but neither the high court nor the Justice Department had formally admitted they were mistaken — until now.”
Continue reading