Message from the Directors
“Where did you come from?” “How did you and Dad meet?”
Perfectly normal questions, for most kids - but for us, the answer was not so easily gained.
We knew a little. That our moms were Japanese, which meant their occasionally forsaking tuna casserole and Campbell Soup and other staples of a suburban home, for strange cuisine, obtained at some expense and difficulty. They spoke with accents. They often approached the task of childrearing with a grim, life-or-death intensity. Their native land seemed so exotic, so other-worldly, it might as well have been on the moon. But then again, the moon was only three days’ flight away - a fraction of the time it took to sail from Yokohama to the US.
And to top it off, our moms - having survived a brutal war and its unpleasant aftermath - were not inclined to revisit it.
But if our moms were happy to put the past behind them, it was a subject that continued to beckon. Kathryn began to collect material for a book. Karen offered to illustrate it. I said, let’s make a film.
The result was a bittersweet, painfully wrought portrait in miniature of three mothers and their daughters. It is a story of strong, even obstinate women. It’s about emigrating, without a safety net. About being mixed-race - when mono-racial was normal.
We could not begin to cover in any serious way the small but significant role our moms played in bringing their two countries a little closer - but that’s a part of the story, too. Most of all, it’s an obscure but compelling episode in modern US-Japan history.
Peering into the looking glass, we’ve found, tells us as much about our countries, as it does about our own families.
We hope you find it fascinating, too.
Perfectly normal questions, for most kids - but for us, the answer was not so easily gained.
We knew a little. That our moms were Japanese, which meant their occasionally forsaking tuna casserole and Campbell Soup and other staples of a suburban home, for strange cuisine, obtained at some expense and difficulty. They spoke with accents. They often approached the task of childrearing with a grim, life-or-death intensity. Their native land seemed so exotic, so other-worldly, it might as well have been on the moon. But then again, the moon was only three days’ flight away - a fraction of the time it took to sail from Yokohama to the US.
And to top it off, our moms - having survived a brutal war and its unpleasant aftermath - were not inclined to revisit it.
But if our moms were happy to put the past behind them, it was a subject that continued to beckon. Kathryn began to collect material for a book. Karen offered to illustrate it. I said, let’s make a film.
The result was a bittersweet, painfully wrought portrait in miniature of three mothers and their daughters. It is a story of strong, even obstinate women. It’s about emigrating, without a safety net. About being mixed-race - when mono-racial was normal.
We could not begin to cover in any serious way the small but significant role our moms played in bringing their two countries a little closer - but that’s a part of the story, too. Most of all, it’s an obscure but compelling episode in modern US-Japan history.
Peering into the looking glass, we’ve found, tells us as much about our countries, as it does about our own families.
We hope you find it fascinating, too.
