Yuriko Kamiya Oral History- A Year in Infamy | Miya Rosenthal (Documentary, 20 minutes)
Abstract
Yuriko Kamiya Oral History: A Year in Infamy | Miya Rosenthal (Spring 2022)
Documentary, 20 minutes; Part of the 2022-2023 A Year on Angel Island Island Project.
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Course Number: COLWRIT R4B (College Writing Programs)
Course Name: "Reading, Composition, and Research: Images of History”Term
Taken: Fall 2022Instructor on Record: Patricia Steenland
Creator Name: Miya Rosenthal
Year Created: First-Year
Product description:
“Oral History of Yuriko Kamiya: A Year in Infamy" aims to shed light on the experiences of families during World War II Japanese American internment. Through Yuriko Kamiya's life, the project utilizes documentary-style oral history, curated photographs, and personal narratives to explore the impacts of the Pearl Harbor bombing on Japanese Americans. The internment of over 125,000 Japanese Americans during World War II is the greatest constitutional violation in American history. The history is oft-told as a rash response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Contrary to this narrative, the internment of Japanese Americans was not an immediate or inevitable response to the events of December 7, 1941. Nearly one year was spent executing the incarceration following the bombing. Following what then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “a date which will live in infamy,” was a year in infamy for Japanese Americans living in the western United States. That year in infamy is far more than a blip in the history of the internment. This is that story eighty years later. That year, 1941 to 1942, is remembered vividly by Yuriko Kamiya (now Lily Sugino). She was six years old, living in Long Beach, California when the bombing occurred. In the subsequent year, she was forcibly removed from her home, separated from her family, and transported across the nation. These events transpired prior to her three-year incarceration at the Arkansas Rohwer War Relocation Center. And while the experiences at Rohwer, and the nine other semi-permanent prisons, shall always be central to stories of the Japanese American internment, they do not provide a complete picture. This project seeks to add a piece, the life of Yuriko Kamiya, to the picture of Japanese American existence and to the picture of American history.
Process description:
“A Year in Infamy” was created by Rosenthal as her semester-long final project exploring the Japanese American internment. The Kamiya story is communicated through a documentary-style oral history which primarily showcases Sugino recounting her memories. Sugino was interviewed at her home in Thousand Oaks, California in November 2022. Sugino’s interview is supplemented with photographs from a personal book of Kamiya Family History, curated by Sugino’s younger brother Eiichi Kamiya, the War Relocation Authority’s Central Photographic File in the National Archives, and additional archival material. Miya Rosenthal, the granddaughter of Lily Sugino, created and narrated the project in honor of her grandmother and the many hidden histories that demand uncovering. The project has received recognition, including the Immigration Creative Prize awarded by UC Berkeley Arts + Design Initiative and Future Histories Lab, and has been presented at the Oral History Association annual conference, Berkeley Discovery Symposium, Chiang Research Festival, and UC Berkeley undergraduate research seminars.