S  A  T  U  R  D  A  Y  ,    M  A  Y    1

Program 15
Japan America Theatre • 2:00 p.m.
 
STAND UP FOR JUSTICE
(USA, 2004) Dir./Scr.: John Esaki
Ralph Lazo, a 16-year-old Mexican American high school student at Belmont High School in downtown Los Angeles, voluntarily joins his Japanese American friends at the Manzanar concentration camp during World War II. The latest Visual Communications production, over four years in the making, was a co-production with Nikkei for Civil Rights & Redress. STAND UP FOR JUSTICE recreates the chaotic days when thousands of japanese American families on the West Coast were forced to board trains and buses to destinations unknown. Ralph surprises his classmates at the train station as they are about to depart for Manzanar, five hours away at the foot of the Eastern Sierras. His subsequent acts of friendship and honor take him on a journey unprecedented in the history of America’s concentration camps.
35mm, 30 min., color and black & white, Narrative
 

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