Today we’d like to introduce you to Antonia Grace Glenn.
Antonia Grace, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am the director and producer of an award-winning new documentary film, THE ITO SISTERS: AN AMERICAN STORY, which captures the rarely told stories of the earliest Japanese immigrants to the United States and their American-born children. In particular, the film focuses on the experiences of Issei (or immigrant) and Nisei (or first generation born in the US) women, whose voices have largely been excluded from American history.
At the heart of the film are three Nisei sisters: Natsuye (Nancy), Haruye (Lillian, my grandmother) and Hideko (Hedy), who were born on a farm in the Sacramento River Delta and whose lives were directly impacted by some of the most significant events of 20th-century America, from the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 to the Great Depression to World War II. The film also explores the lives of the women’s immigrant parents, Yetsusaburo and Toku Ito, who originally planned to stay only temporarily in the United States and to work and save money before returning to Japan to live, but whose plans were repeatedly thwarted.
These personal narratives are set against the backdrop of the Anti-Japanese Movement in California, a 60-year campaign by politicians, journalists, landowners, labor leaders and others that culminated in the forced removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II. By charting the long history of anti-Japanese discrimination and legislation, the film demonstrates that the loss of civil liberties that Japanese Americans experienced during World War II was not a product of wartime hysteria in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather part of a systematic, decades-long campaign against the Japanese in the United States.
Featuring interviews with the three sisters—conducted in their 80s and 90s—the film is also brought to life through family and archival photographs and documents; verbatim quotes from prominent historical figures, performed by a cast of talented voice-over artists; commentary and analysis from renowned scholars; and artistic illustrations. THE ITO SISTERS reveals a little-known chapter of American history, focusing on life in what was essentially a California plantation system between the world wars, with Asian and Mexican laborers working the fields of white landowners.
Recently, in honor of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month in May, an hour-long version of THE ITO SISTERS was broadcast on more than 200 public television stations nationwide, including on KCET and PBS SoCal’s WORLD Channel in Los Angeles. The film has been an Official Selection of the Berkeley Video & Film Festival (Grand Festival Award and Audience Award), the Sacramento Japanese Film Festival (Emerging Filmmaker Award), the Women’s Film Festival San Diego, the Boston Asian American Film Festival (Audience Choice Award for Feature Documentary), the Asian Pop-Up Cinema Festival in Chicago, the Japan Film Festival Los Angeles (coming up August 17-18, 2019) and the Cincinnati African & Asian Diaspora Film Festival (coming up August 24, 2019). Additionally, THE ITO SISTERS has been featured in community screening events at over 30 museums, universities and cultural sites around the country. Notably, the film will be screened at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC on September 20, 2019.
Press coverage of the film has included Asian Pacific America with Robert Handa (NBC Bay Area), the Boston Globe, Capital Public Radio (Sacramento), the Daily Californian, Densho, the East Bay Times, KPFA 94.1 FM (Bay Area), the Marin Independent Journal, Nikkei West, the Sacramento Bee and the Stockton Record, among others.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
While there have been several important documentary films that explore the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, there are few if any films that focus on the Japanese American experience before the war. Today, it is not widely known that there were segregated schools in Sacramento County to separate white and Asian children; or the crucial role that Asian laborers played in establishing California’s agricultural wealth; or that arranged marriages were regularly practiced by Japanese Americans in California. The film also is unique in that it gives voice to the stories of early Japanese American women, and their experiences with agricultural labor, domestic work and raising families under challenging circumstances.
At the core of THE ITO SISTERS is the theme of citizenship and American identity, and how the rights of immigrants and their children have been restricted, tested and/or established. Particularly in the current anti-immigrant political climate, when we are seeing a resurgence in the scapegoating of immigrants and refugees, as well as the horrific human rights violations of family separation and the incarceration of children at the southern border of the United States, the themes explored in the film remain urgent and timely. In fact, some of the concentration camps being established today to hold refugees are near the sites of camps that incarcerated Japanese Americans 75 years ago. It is our hope that THE ITO SISTERS can play a small part in encouraging conversation around these issues, as well as inter-ethnic solidarity in the face of hatred and prejudice.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Unwashed Masses Productions – what should we know?
Unwashed Masses Productions is an independent production company dedicated to telling compelling stories and celebrating diverse, underrepresented voices. The company’s first film is THE ITO SISTERS: AN AMERICAN STORY, which has been broadcast on more than 200 public television stations around the country and been an Official Selection in seven film festivals, winning four festival awards. Upcoming projects include a feature documentary chronicling the Miss Saigon casting scandal in 1990-91 when Asian American artists and activists protested the casting of a white actor in an Asian role in a major Broadway production. Another project in development is a scripted feature film set in Los Angeles during World War II.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
The creative team for THE ITO SISTERS includes producer and editor Gregory Pacificar, composer Dave Iwataki, illustrator Manny Falcon Padua, After Effects artist Kenny Navarro, Sound Mixer Maurice Gainen, Sound Re-Recording Mixer Leslie Chew and Colorist Jesse Eisenhardt. The prestigious scholars interviewed in the film include Evelyn Nakano Glenn (UC Berkeley), Dorinne Kondo (USC), Michael Omi (UC Berkeley) and Jere Takahashi (UC Berkeley). Voice-over actors featured in THE ITO SISTERS include Scott Dawson, Patrick Glenn, David Johann Kim, Grace Kim, Tim Kniffin, Kerr Lordygan, Vance Reyes and Joel Rieck.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.itosisters.com/
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unwashedmassesproductions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ito-Sisters-An-American-Story-1783185788647226/
- Twitter: @itosistersmovie
Image Credit:
ItoSisters plus the poster image are the property of Antonia Grace Glenn. ItoSisters are in the public domain.
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