Abstract:

This film poses the question "What does it mean to be an American in a time of uncertainty and fear?" The subject area is the fragile nature of civil rights, and it explores the Japanese-American internment through the lens of 9/11. As a child, Dr. Frank Kitamoto and his family lived on Bainbridge Island, WA, where the U.S. government first ordered Japanese-Americans to register, and leave their homes, and then interned them in detention camps - a panic-stricken reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. For decades, the Japanese-American community rarely spoke of the disturbing experience of their exclusion and incarceration. In AFTER SILENCE the past comes alive as Frank - who spent 3 ½ years of his childhood in a United States internment camp during WWII - and five students from his island community develop archival photographic prints in the high school darkroom. Together, Frank and the students discuss the need to safeguard the constitutional rights of those living in the United States...especially in times of crisis.