Community Stories episodes

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Community Stories: We Hereby Refuse: The Akutsu Family Resists

12/18/202314:30

Adapted from the award-winning graphic novel "We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration," this motion-comic style animated film takes an excerpt from the story of the Akutsu Family. Brothers Jim and Gene and parents Kiyonosuke and Nao lived in Seattle and ran a shoe repair shop in the city's Seattle’s Chinatown-International District neighborhood. After Pearl Harbor marked the United States entry into World War II, the Akutsus found themselves and their community swept up into the fervor of anti-Japanese sentiment that led to Executive Order 9066 which imprisoned the West Coast Japanese community in American concentration camps. Faced with violations of their rights as America citizens, Jim and Gene embarked on a journey of political resistance. “The Akutsu Family Resists” illustrates the conditions the family faced, the political deals that paved the way to incarceration, and the beginnings of Jim and Gene’s fight to resist.

"We Hereby Refuse: The Akutsu Family Resist"
Written by Frank Abe
Artwork by Ross Ishikawa
Published by Wing Luke Museum and Chin Music Press

3172101