501-918-3025
calsfoundation@cals.org
calsfoundation@cals.org
Survivor of Japanese-American Internment Camp and Son Will Speak at Film Screening on July 13
Will history repeat itself as the USA faces an immigration crisis and incarcerates immigrants in camps?
Voices of experience will speak on the painful cost paid by their own families after a similar confinement of Japanese Americans in Arkansas during World War II.
Relocation, Arkansas: Aftermath of Incarceration will show on July 13 at 3:00 pm in the Ron Robinson Theater at Library Square. A panel discussion after the screening will feature the filmmaker and several participants from the film, one of whom is a survivor of the internment camp and others who are descendants of survivors. Admission is free.
The film is a powerful testimony to the ongoing effects of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. The psychological consequences continue to this day, not only for those confined in the camps, but also for their descendants. Relocation, Arkansas was produced and directed by Vivienne “Lie” Schiffer, a native of Rohwer.
The film screening accompanies the opening of “A Matter of Mind and Heart,” the fourth exhibition of a Butler Center series on the Japanese internment camps at Rohwer, Arkansas.
The film touches directly on current ethical debates in the news. The New York Times reported on June 22, 2018 that the Department of Health and Human Services was looking for a site for a new detainment camp to contain Latino children who have crossed the south border of the United States. Reports said the federal agency was considering placing that new camp in Arkansas, only a few miles from the original Rohwer internment camp.
George Takei, beloved Star Trek actor who spent his youth in the Rohwer internment camp, posted the following Twitter comment:
“Just heard that they are considering a detainment center for immigrant children just two miles from where I spent my childhood behind barbed wire in a camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. I have no words.”
The screening is co-sponsored by the Clinton School for Public Service and the Arkansas Psychological Association.
Ron Robinson Theater at Library Square
(on the campus of the CALS Main Library in downtown Little Rock)
100 River Market Avenue
Little Rock, AR 72201
For more information, call 501-320-5715
“This kind of thing doesn’t just end with the person who was in the camp.” Ruth Takemoto McInroy
