Claudia Katayanagi’s documentary “Community in Conflict’ will be screened on Sunday, Oct. 22, at 4 p.m. at Regal Cinemas LA Live 14, 1000 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, as part of the La Femme Film Festival.

Feelings of neglect and resentment boil over when a committee of historians, community leaders and Japanese Americans work to install a marker acknowledging the existence of a World War II-era internment camp in Santa Fe, N.M.

The Santa Fe Internment Camp held the largest number of Japanese American detainees of any of the internment camps run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or the Army. Santa Fe initially held Issei men from the West Coast who had been arrested in the days and weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor starting in March 1942. After their hearings, these men were released or paroled to other camps, with Santa Fe closing for the first time in September 1942.

The camp reopened in March 1943 when the Army began transferring civilian internees back to INS camps. In 1945, Nisei/Kibei renunciants and Issei from Tule Lake were transferred to Santa Fe, and the population grew to over 2,000. By the time the camp closed for good in May 1946, 4,555 Japanese American male internees had passed through Santa Fe.

A marker overlooking the site of the camp was dedicated in 2002, capping a contentious process that saw vocal local opposition. (Source: Densho)

Katayanagi’s documentary “A Bitter Legacy” focused on the U.S. government’s citizen isolation centers, secret prisons used to isolate “troublemakers” from other Japanese American prisoners during World War II. Filmmaker’s bio: https://www.abitterlegacy.com/filmmaker-bio

Virtual screening is also available. For more information, go to: https://lafemme.org/2021-film-festival/2021-film-program/

Articles for you