National Park Service
Susan Haines
Exhibits Specialist
National Park Service - Harpers Ferry Center
HARPERS FERRY
West Virginia
Documentary
Minidoka: An American Concentration Camp
National Park Service - Harpers Ferry Center
Mark Southern
1. Hanako Wakatsuki
Chief of Interpretation & Education, Minidoka National Historic Site

2. Rory Banyard
Producer/Director, North Shore Productions

3. Sarah Kass
Scriptwriter

This film will play in the visitor center at Minidoka National Historic Site in southern Idaho. It tells the story of Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during WWII and incarcerated in a desert prison camp. Innocent of any crime, many would remain at Minidoka for over three years. Few visible traces of the camp remain today, so the film helps visitors see and hear what happened here through historic images and eyewitness accounts. The film also encourages viewers to consider the difficult questions Minidoka poses for a nation that pledges “liberty and justice for all.”
Visitors to Minidoka National Historic Site in Jerome, Idaho, many of whom know little about the site or the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. The film was produced for a broad range of viewers, as is customary for NPS visitor center films.
This film will debut at the park in February 2020 when their new visitor center opens, but we’ve hosted 17 public screenings in five states since the film was completed in April 2019, including screenings for Minidoka survivors, advocates, and the general public. Audience feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, most notably from survivors. (Sample comment: “The Japanese American community has waited a long time for a film like this, and you have fully delivered.”) Viewers often get emotional during screenings, and post-show Q&A sessions have been lively and substantive. The park will conduct formal evaluations in 2020.
This film will play in a dedicated theater with 5.1 surround sound, on-screen subtitles, audio description, and assistive listening. We filmed nearly 40 hours of interviews with 38 individuals (Minidoka survivors and their families, historians, etc.) for this project, adding significantly to the park’s oral history collection. The interviews are also featured in a series of interactive story stations at the visitor center, and will be donated to the Densho digital archives (www.densho.org) for online distribution. A 60-minute broadcast version of the film and a curriculum package for middle and high school students are also currently in production.
“Our democracy is based on the premise that all men are created equal, with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's a wonderful idea, but vulnerable. It takes people who cherish that idea to be actively involved in the process.” – George Takei
https://vimeo.com/379335957