Islanders can step back in time to examine the contributions of Japanese Americans on Vashon, as well as the tragedy and shame of their forced removal from the island in 1942, at a premiere of a new documentary next week.
The film, “Vashon Then & Now — The Japanese American Presence, Part 1,” is the latest installment of an ongoing Voice of Vashon series. The free premiere will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 20, at Vashon Theatre.
Past episodes of “Vashon Then & Now,” by the documentary team of Michael Monteleone, Dennis Lambert and Bruce Haulman, have explored the history of island institutions, including Granny’s Attic, the Vashon Theatre, and the Washington State Ferries.
But with this film, the filmmakers are turning their attention to the story of a once-vibrant community on Vashon.
With historical footage and records, video interviews, audio recordings and touching essays, the 40-minute film — subtitled in Japanese throughout — shows what it was like to be a Japanese American on Vashon from the early 1900s to 1942.
In a phone interview, Monteleone and Lambert both said this chapter of the island’s history had particular relevance to the current political climate.
Referencing the 2016 presidential election, Monteleone said, “I think there are parallels between what happened on the island 70 years ago and the discrimination that people still face today.”
Lambert agreed.
“I think a similar thing could happen this very day,” he said.
The film, both said, was also inspired and informed by Vashon Heritage Museum’s exhibition, “Joy and Heartache: Japanese Americans on Vashon,” which will be on view at the museum through May 17, 2019. The exhibition traces the evolution of the Japanese American presence on Vashon, from the early immigration of Japanese to Vashon in the early 20th-century through the trauma of WWII incarceration and recovery.
Like the exhibit, the film details a lively Japanese subculture on Vashon that numbered approximately 130 people by 1942.
“There were Japanese clubs, dance classes and going concerns with farming,” Monteleone said. “There was camaraderie and friendship between the Japanese and other islanders.”
Japanese immigrants were important economic drivers in Vashon’s then-rural farming community. The Mukai family, whose legacy is preserved now by the local nonprofit Friends of Mukai, were among the most prosperous citizens of Vashon, operating a thriving berry farm and fruit barreling plant.
All that changed in 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Exclusion Act, an executive order signed in the bombing’s aftermath, required the internment of all West Coast Japanese Americans — approximately 120,000 people, two-thirds of whom were American citizens. There were no exceptions for infants or the elderly, and people with part-Japanese ancestry were included as well.
The Mukai family and a few other members of Vashon’s Japanese community managed to move outside the exclusion zone prior to May 6, 1942, when all of the more than 100 remaining Japanese American residents of Vashon were forced off the island by gun-toting Army troops. They were put in internment camps, where they remained until after the war ended.
“The evacuation ripped part of the island away,” Monteleone said, adding that an important segment of the film is an interview with Barbara Steen, an octogenarian islander who still remembers the traumatic time and the sudden disappearance of one of her best friends.
Part 2 of the series, now in production, will detail what happened inside the internment camps and after the war.
But Monteleone said making this film had given his documentary team more ideas for future installments of “Vashon Then & Now” to cover other subcultures of Vashon, including the island’s thriving LGBTQ community.
Other potential subjects may include the community of Ellisport, Vashon Community Care, The Hardware Store Restaurant and even the history of The Beachcomber.
“We have a list that will keep us busy for the next 30 years,” he said.
