The Ito Sisters: An American Story (Free Screening and Discussion)

Winner of a Grand Festival Award and an Audience Award at the 2017 Berkeley Video and Film Festival, THE ITO SISTERS captures the rarely told stories of the earliest Japanese immigrants to the United States and their American-born children.

In particular, the film focuses on the experiences of Issei (or immigrant) and Nisei (or first generation born in the US) women, whose voices have largely been excluded from American history. The three sisters at the heart of the film – Nancy, Lillian and Hedy – are memorable and engaging characters, who in their 80s and 90s share stories of humor, hardship and heartbreak, dating back to their father’s immigration from Japan to the US in 1897. They offer a rare first-hand account of their family’s struggle to become American, in the face of a series of natural and man-made disasters. The family’s chronicle is set against the backdrop of the Anti-Japanese Movement, a 60-year campaign by politicians, journalists, landowners and others that culminated in the forced removal and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II.

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The screening of THE ITO SISTERS will be followed by a Q&A with director and producer Antonia Grace
Glenn and UC Berkeley faculty members Evelyn Nakano Glenn and Michael Omi, both of whom appear as
scholars in the film. A light reception will follow the Q&A.

For more information about the film, please visit: www.itosisters.com

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LOCATION

Multicultural Community Center
Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union
UC Berkeley
2495 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94720

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Sponsored by UC Berkeley Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies (AAADS), the UC Berkeley Asian Pacific American Systemwide Alliance (APASA), the UC Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies (CJS), the UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department, the UC Berkeley Gender and Women’s Studies Department, the UC Berkeley Japanese American Studies Advisory Committee, the Japanese American Women Alumnae of UC Berkeley (JAWAUCB), the UC Berkeley Nikkei Student Union and the UC Berkeley Office of Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD).