In continuing Echo Park Film Center’s series on Race & Space in Los Angeles, this installment turns its focus towards LA's Asian American community. Beginning with a USC student-made production, The Challenge (1957, Claude Bache) exposes the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII but does so from assimilationist perspective put forth by the Japanese Americans Citizens League, which at the time was promoting a platform leaning towards adopting American ideologies rather than retaining Japanese. As counterpoint, the program features some films from the 1970’s collective of Asian American filmmakers known as Visual Communications, who made films from the viewpoint of the Asian artist rather than Asian as subject. One such film, Manzanar (1971, Robert Nakamura), addresses the issue of Japanese internment during WWII from a much different perspective. The program will also include additional films from Visual Communications that explore the topic of identity and collective memory as they resonate within the Asian American community. 

Special thanks to our program partners CalHumanities, the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive at USC, the Japanese American National Museum and Visual Communications.

FREE EVENT! EVERYONE WELCOME!

SCREENING LOCATION IS THE PLAZA IN FRONT OF THE JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM.

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visitwww.calhum.org.