Growing up in Southern California, Richard Imamura often heard stories about the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans, including accounts from his parents, who met while they were at the Gila River camp in Arizona.
Family friends were "from the camp" or "another camp." His grandmother suffered a stroke while living in a camp; that’s why she walked with a limp. His mother met Eleanor Roosevelt during a camp visit by the first lady.
The camps were part of the background conversation of Imamura’s youth, everywhere and nowhere, understood but only to a point.
It wasn’t until decades later, long after the 62-year-old Los Angeles writer understood the political history of internment, that he heard a camp story that underscored the human spirit: How internees at Manzanar would risk being shot by guards by sneaking under the barbed-wire perimeter so they could fish for trout in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountain range.
That act of defiance became the new documentary, "The Manzanar Fishing Club," which opens Friday for a weeklong run at Kahala Theatre. Imamura wrote the screenplay for the film, which was directed by his friend of more than 50 years, Cory Shiozaki.
Shiozaki initially asked Imamura to write a screenplay for a short film, but after reviewing several interviews with surviving internees, the scope of the project opened up.
"I began to see that this was just more than a short film about sneaking out and going fishing," Imamura said. "I could see a deeper meaning. I noticed a common thread. A lot of the fellows were talking about the freedom, about getting out beyond the wire."
That was in 2005, and it took six years and 70 hours of interviews to complete.
MORE THAN 10,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated at Manzanar during World War II, part of a larger government effort that forcibly removed them from the West Coast. They lived in the shadow of guard towers with spotlights and armed soldiers.
Imamura, who has strong family ties to Maui, where his mother was raised, had seen documentaries about the camps, and all of them were sternly worded, finger-pointing examinations of injustice.
"I didn’t want to ignore or gloss over that and do some kind of ‘Leave It to Beaver’ thing," he said. "I wanted to tell a story in a personal way so we can know that this happened to people."
By focusing on the brief escapes to fish, Imamura found a way to add a human dimension. One of the 30 people interviewed for the film was Archie Miyatake, who was 17 when he was sent to Manzanar with his family. He said it best for Imamura.
"Archie said the air just tasted better outside the wire," Imamura said. "I thought that really captured what this meant to those guys to get out."
They were a determined group, escaping at night when the spotlights swung in the right direction. They took fishing poles made out of bamboo rake handles that were stolen from camp supplies or fashioned from willow branches. Hooks were made from bent sewing needles. They used string for line.
Some people were caught, and the cost of freedom was being paraded through the middle of camp at the tip of a bayonet. "It was largely to humiliate them, to say who is boss," Imamura said.
But the payoff for those who returned undetected was as sweet as mountain air: the mild flavor of succulent trout, hastily cooked (because everyone in Manzanar could smell it frying) and savored bite by bite.
AND that’s a wrap. …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
