MINNESOTA EXPERIENCE PREMIERES
ARMED WITH LANGUAGE By David Mura, Writer, Armed with Language
During World War II, nearly 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were incarcerated in desolate areas of the West in ten camps, each ringed by barbed wire fences and rifle towers with machine guns. My parents’ families were among those imprisoned.
One irony of the camps is that a significant number of Nisei men — second generation Japanese Americans — served in the armed forces. More than six thousand Nisei soldiers served as Military Intelligence Service linguists throughout the Pacific theater. They translated captured documents, interro- gated prisoners, helped US troops maneuver on battlefields, and provided absolutely crucial information to commanders forming battlefield strategies. General Charles Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, maintained that the MIS Nisei linguists shortened the war in the Pacific by two years and saved a million American lives. During the war, the MIS Nisei linguists were trained at a language school at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling. Because of this Minnesota connection, Twin Cities PBS has produced a documentary about them and this school, Armed With Language. Many Nisei soldiers served even while their families were imprisoned, without a trial or writ of habeas corpus. And the key reason why they were imprisoned was the racist refusal to distinguish between Japan the nation and Americans of Japanese descent.
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As the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes makes clear, this racist refusal to distinguish between the countries of Asia and Americans of Asian descent continues to the present. This documentary about the MIS Nisei and the history of Japanese Americans is so necessary, particularly at this time.
RETURN TO SKID ROW Some viewers will recall TPT’s 1998 program Down on Skid Row which aired for years and was popular with viewers. “A few years ago, we determined that standards and expectations had changed and some of the graphic and troubling footage didn’t seem appropriate to air in prime time without some additional context,” says Executive Producer Daniel Bergin. So another long time TPT producer Steve Spencer worked with scholars like the author of “The King of Skid Row” James Eli Shiffer to reframe the found footage. The haunting images now might offer some historic context for current day concerns like housing insecurity, oppression of Native peoples, and addiction.
ARMED WITH LANGUAGE TPT 2 MAY 17 | 8PM RETURN TO SKID ROW TPT 2 MAY 10 | 8PM
James Shier, University of Minnesota Press Inside a Skid Row Bar, 1960
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