Community Moved at Kintsukuroi Film Screening
Published on February 27, 2025
Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. The order led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Incarceration camps were located all over the United States. two of them in California, Tule Lake and Manzanar. Before Bay Area Japanese Americans were shipped to incarceration camps they were sent to Assembly Centers, including Tanforan Assembly Center.
On Saturday, close to 80 patrons attended a screening of the film Kintsukuroi, directed by Kerwin Berk. The film follows members of the Ito family, both Issei and Nisei, from their pre-war life in San Francisco's Japantown to the concentration camps of the American West to the battlefields of Europe as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.
Prior to the film we heard from Mayor Eddie Flores and Karyl Matsumoto, former Interim National Director of the Japanese American Citizens
League and Manzanar internee. After the film we were fortunate to have a Q&A with Director Kerwin Berk, Director of Photography Ben Arikawa and actor Ron Munekawa who played Mr. Ito. A very engaged audience shared their own personal family stories and asked questions about the film making process.
We want to give a big thank you to the South San Francisco Friends of the Library for sponsoring this program.
To learn more about Kintsukuroi visit the film's website. The movie will be available for checkout at the SSF Library soon!
To read more about the Japanese American Incarceration checkout this book list: