Sebastopol film screening remembers WWII Japanese-American internment

Stanley Hayami died more than 70 years ago while serving in the military during World War II, but his memory was alive and well Sunday afternoon in Sebastopol.

About 100 people came to the Enmanji Buddhist Temple’s Memorial Hall on Gravenstein Highway to watch a documentary chronicling Hayami’s incarceration in an internment camp and his service in the Army. The documentary, “A Flicker in Eternity,” was screened in connection with this year’s Day of Remembrance, which marks the anniversary of the 1942 executive order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizing the widespread internment of Japanese-Americans in the western United States.

Hayami’s story offers unique insight into the internment and war because he kept a diary and wrote numerous letters, both of which form the basis of the documentary. The film follows Hayami’s contemporaneous accounts of his family’s incarceration at the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming and his Army service in the war leading up to his death in San Terenzo, Italy at just 19 years of age.

“We felt that this is an important story to tell,” said Marie Sugiyama, co-president of the Sonoma County chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, which sponsored the Sunday event. “All these young men fought for the U.S. because they wanted to be good citizens.”

Sugiyama first saw the film last summer while in Washington, D.C., for a conference, and was inspired to have it shown this year for her organization’s Day of Remembrance event, where co-director Sharon Yamato held a question-and-answer session afterward.

Yamato, who’s based in Los Angeles, said the documentary was born after she and co-director Ann Kaneko were approached by the author of a book based on Hayami’s diary and letters.

“I thought ‘Wow, this is perfect,’ ” Yamato recalled in an interview. “It’s all his own words and all we have to do is have him speak them. It was a natural fit for a film.”

The documentary breathes new life into Hayami’s firsthand accounts of the internment camp and his service in the heroic 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a highly decorated Army regiment composed of Japanese-?American soldiers. In Yamato’s view, the story resonates today not only because of its telling source material, but also due to troubling similarities she sees in the political forces behind the internment camps and present-day efforts by the Trump Administration to restrict immigration.

“It’s very frightening,” she said.

Hayami’s account hit close to home for many of the attendees Sunday. One audience member, 98-year old Fairfield resident Ted Miyagishima, is a veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He called the screening a “great idea” and praised the documentary’s educational value.

Another audience member, Petaluma resident Milt Yoshioka, spent several of his earliest years at an internment camp in Arizona. Yoshioka, 77, described the documentary as “outstanding” and an important reminder of a shameful period in American history.

“It could happen again,” Yoshioka said. “But we sure hope like hell it doesn’t.”

You can reach Staff Writer J.D. Morris at 707-521-5337 or jd.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@thejdmorris.