History and Memory (film)

History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige is a documentary film by Rea Tajiri that recounts the experiences of her family who were forcibly removed from their home and imprisoned alongside 126,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Tajiri family was first placed in Salinas Assembly Center before being forced to relocate to Poston, Arizona . This film is largely experimental in style as it creatively blends together forms of recorded history and personal memories to reconstruct events from past. Examples include personal interactions amongst the family that are described in scrolling text and written from the perspective of the grandfather's spirit who observes these scenes from above. Additionally, scenes throughout the film often show photographs or archival footage with voiceovers from Tajiri's family members recounting their incarceration experiences.

Contributing to the film's experimental style is the melding of these sources in a nonlinear narrative. Tajiri includes visuals from Hollywood films, government propaganda, newsreels, and archival images. One prominent example is the film, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) which stars Spencer Tracy who investigates the disappearance of a Japanese American man in a small desert town. Tajiri identifies parallels between this film and her mother's experiences in Poston, Arizona, but also acknowledges the complete erasure of the Japanese American character. History and Memory also incorporates different methodologies such as oral interviews, memorabilia, and a pilgrimage to the location where her mother was incarcerated. A reoccurring scene anchoring these experiences involves a reenactment featuring Tajiri herself embodying the role of her mother as she refills a canteen with water in the desert. She explains that by recreating this scene she can reconnect this image to the story and forgive her mother for the loss of memory.

Tajiri explores her own family's memories of incarceration that have become blurred through acts of historical silencing by official repositories, but also individuals who choose to forget these painful experiences. As stated on the official website, the film not only brings attention to gaps in the story of Japanese American incarceration but also raises questions about our collective history. History and Memory does the work of reclaiming "what has been stolen and what has been lost." Therefore, it is meant to challenge viewer's perception and understanding of Japanese American incarceration in order to rectify the past and the present. ^[1]

According to a 2011 interview with Rea Tajiri by scholar Kerreen Ely-Harper, the idea for History and Memory came following the passing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 that granted $20,000 in reparations for surviving incarcerees. Tajiri asked her mother about her eligibility for compensation to which she responded not remembering being incarcerated, despite multiple family members corroborating her incarceration experience. Tajiri remembers being both disturbed and confused by her mother's "amnesia" towards what would have been a pivotal experience in her life. This prompted her to search for records in the National Archives. Upon finding her mother's file, Tajiri explains that she experienced both relief and sadness. She recalls being, "relieved with the fact that she was in camp but saddened (...) that obviously there is a trauma that she couldn't even admit to herself that she had to bury it for herself." ^[2] While in the National Archives, Tajiri was also shocked to discover a photograph of her grandmother in a wood carving class which is mentioned in the film as being connected to a treasured family artifact. She describes these experiences as "haunting" as though the past was piercing through to the present. ^[3]

Part of History and Memory also features footage shot by amateur cameraman Dave Tatsuno who was incarcerated at Topaz, Utah . Tatsuno's footage, including that of a young woman ice skating on a small pond, appear within the film to show the everyday lives of incarcerees, countering official newsreel footage and wartime propaganda of the time. According to Tajiri, voiceovers were primarily used because her family did not want to be identified on camera. These family members mentioned feeling there was too much shame associated with incarceration that prevented them from sharing their experiences openly. ^[4]

In a 2023 interview, Tajiri reflected on History and Memory , stating that the film was influenced by approaching the incarceration experience from different lenses. She wanted to explore its impact on family, kinship, identity, and history, to which she recalls, "I think that a really common thread is of course, memory and how we navigate and come to terms with memories." ^[5]

Rea Tajiri is an award-winning filmmaker and artist whose work spans the genres of documentary and experimental films. She specializes in non-traditional storytelling meant to reflect and educate the public on silenced histories from the past. Tajiri is a third-generation Japanese American that grew up both in Chicago and Van Nuys, California. Her father, Vince Tajiri, was a photojournalist that once worked for the Nichi Bei newspaper in San Francisco and her uncle, Larry Tajiri , was a prominent journalist during WWII that worked for the Japanese American Citizen League (JACL) newspaper, The Pacific Citizen . Larry's wife, Guyo Tajiri , was also an editor and staffer for The Pacific Citizen during WWII. Another uncle, Shinkichi Tajiri , was a famous sculptor that moved to the Netherlands.

As a child, Tajiri described her experiences playing with tear sheets and piles of photographs around the house. She was fascinated by older black and white photos of Asian Americans dressed in formal wear, which would inspire her creative pursuits. Tajiri attended California Institute of the Arts to study Studio Art in the late-1970s and early-1980s. During this time, she began experimenting with movie cameras and recording footage. Tajiri states that recording something in the moment and processing it to be returned a week later connected to her interest in creating memories of the past. ^[6]

After working as a production assistant on a few Hollywood films, Tajiri moved to New York in the early 1980s where she became acquainted with activist Yuri Kochiyama . Kochiyama's work inspired her to focus on topics related to Japanese American history. Tajiri would later go on to co-direct the film, Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice (1993), a biography on Kochiyama's experiences. Both Kochiyama and Tajiri discovered that their parents at one time had lived next door to each other during World War II, when Tajiri's father was stationed with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. ^[7]

With a longstanding career in video production, Tajiri's work is deeply personal to her identity and her family's experiences. She centers stories about social movements and Japanese American incarceration. Her work has premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) Film Festival, among other film festivals. Most recently, she completed a feature-length documentary in 2022 titled, Wisdom Gone Wild , about her mother's final years living with dementia. ^[8]

Tajiri's History and Memory has gained popularity amongst film critics and academics for its use of experimental filmmaking to discuss the collective memory of Japanese American incarceration. Scholarship examines the film's cultural impact in challenging conventions of historical preservation through its use of filmmaking. Scholar Glen Mimura attributes the impact to its wide-ranging critique of wartime and postwar racial discourse with its ability to recontextualized images from mass media sources and War Relocation Authority (WRA) propaganda footage. ^[9] Scholar Sumiko Higashi adds that Japanese American artists like Tajiri are "working against the grain of their cultural heritage to retrieve the history of parents and grandparents who have chosen to remain silent." The film has been recognized for supporting the work of traditional historians through its creative use of filmmaking techniques in the documentary genre. ^[10] In the years following its release, History and Memory continues to be examined by scholars that explore themes of Redress and Post-Redress Media, intergenerational trauma, postmemory, postmodernism, collective memory, and revisionist history.

History and Memory first premiered in 1991 at the Whitney Biennial exhibition where New York Times film critic Caryn James recognized Tajiri's work as it "weaves together images and allows them to enrich one another in skewed and subtle ways as their resonances slowly emerge." ^[11] The film would go on to inspire emerging filmmakers including activist, Grace Lee Boggs, who also worked as a Production Coordinator on Tajiri's later film Strawberry Fields (1997). ^[12]

Upon its release, History and Memory has received numerous awards, such as the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association, a Special Jury Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival, and Best Experimental Video from the Atlanta Film and Video Festival. Additionally, the film has been screened in over 250 venues around the world. ^[13]

Might also like Rabbit in the Moon (1999); Family Gathering (1988); Memories from the Department of Amnesia (1991)

Kanopy Streaming Link: History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige

Rea Tajiri Official Website

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