Passing Poston
DVD Released (Y/M/D): 2008-09-23Genre: Documentary
Director: Joe Fox, James Nubile
Stars:
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Synopsis: For the thousands of Japanese Americans forcibly interned during World War II, the scars never healed. For Ruth Okimoto, the need to confront the past brings her back to the desert of Arizona where she spent her childhood years behind barbed wire. Back in the Colorado River Indian Reservation, where Poston was built. It is a journey Ruth takes to find meaning in the inexplicable as she searches to discover the true story of how the Poston camp came into being.
Passing Poston tells the moving & haunting story of four former internees of the Poston Relocation Center. Each person shadowed by a tragic past, each struggling in their own painful way to reconcile the trauma of their youth. Each individual still searching & yearning during the last chapter of their lives to find their rightful place in this country.
The Relocation center, built on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation, served as one of ten internment camps built in seven states. Between 1942 & 1945, the Poston camps housed over 18,000 Japanese & Japanese American detainees. Unlike the nine other internment camps, Poston was unique & built with a very different purpose. It served as a place to house thousands of Japanese detainees but also the infrastructure created by & for them served to recruit more Native Americans from surrounding smaller reservations to the much larger & sparsely populated Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) reservation, after the war.
The Japanese detainees held at the three Poston Camps were used as laborers to build adobe schools, do experimental farming, & construct an irrigation system that could later be used by the Native Americans, thus aiding the settlement of the area as planned by the Office of Indian Affairs (known today as the Bureau of Indian Affairs).
When the Japanese detainees were released in 1945, attention turned to settling the camps with Native Americans. 'Colonists' (as the government referred to them) from the Hopi & Navajo tribes as well as other tribes living along the Colorado River tributaries. These people, in turn, moved into barracks built for the Japanese detainees. The colonists were recruited by the OIA & lured by promises of fertile farmland & plentiful water. They joined the Mohave who had lived on the reservation since its creation in 1865, & the Chemehuevi who arrived shortly after 1865. The colonists found a working canal system to irrigate farmland, school buildings, & many other necessities for their relocation. For some from the less developed areas of other reservations, it was a step up with running water & the opportunity to farm. Source: Official Site
Passing Poston tells the moving & haunting story of four former internees of the Poston Relocation Center. Each person shadowed by a tragic past, each struggling in their own painful way to reconcile the trauma of their youth. Each individual still searching & yearning during the last chapter of their lives to find their rightful place in this country.
The Relocation center, built on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation, served as one of ten internment camps built in seven states. Between 1942 & 1945, the Poston camps housed over 18,000 Japanese & Japanese American detainees. Unlike the nine other internment camps, Poston was unique & built with a very different purpose. It served as a place to house thousands of Japanese detainees but also the infrastructure created by & for them served to recruit more Native Americans from surrounding smaller reservations to the much larger & sparsely populated Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) reservation, after the war.
The Japanese detainees held at the three Poston Camps were used as laborers to build adobe schools, do experimental farming, & construct an irrigation system that could later be used by the Native Americans, thus aiding the settlement of the area as planned by the Office of Indian Affairs (known today as the Bureau of Indian Affairs).
When the Japanese detainees were released in 1945, attention turned to settling the camps with Native Americans. 'Colonists' (as the government referred to them) from the Hopi & Navajo tribes as well as other tribes living along the Colorado River tributaries. These people, in turn, moved into barracks built for the Japanese detainees. The colonists were recruited by the OIA & lured by promises of fertile farmland & plentiful water. They joined the Mohave who had lived on the reservation since its creation in 1865, & the Chemehuevi who arrived shortly after 1865. The colonists found a working canal system to irrigate farmland, school buildings, & many other necessities for their relocation. For some from the less developed areas of other reservations, it was a step up with running water & the opportunity to farm. Source: Official Site
