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Life Interrupted reminds us that experiences of racial, social, and economic injustice are shared by people of many races and ethnicities and in understanding these common experiences, we become more human and more humane and caring.

Sybil Jordan Hampton, Ed.D.
President, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
September 25, 2004

After four years of planning and collaboration between the Japanese American National Museum and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas culminated with a momentous event in September 2004 in Little Rock, Arkansas. The four-day experience brought together a national audience of over 1,300 people who participated in the opening of eight exhibitions on the Japanese American World War II experiences; the presentation of a national conference; an emotional pilgrimage to the sites at Rohwer and Jerome; and the premiere of extensive educational resources.

This groundbreaking event provoked participants of all ages to examine, reflect and celebrate the progress of civil rights and social justice in the state and around the country; however, the resources created by Arkansas teachers for elementary, middle school, and high school students might possibly have the most lasting reach. These resources have been distributed to all public schools in the state in order to help expand Arkansans’ conversations about the struggle for civil rights to include the Japanese American World War II experience.

The resources, used by the students featured on this DVD, can be downloaded at http://www.ualr.edu/lifeinterrupted/curriculum/index.asp

DVD CONTENTS

Video:
Quicktime, 4MB
Windows Media, 3.9MB

Little Rock School Tour

Arkansas students candidly discuss what they learned from studying the Japanese American incarceration and how the experience is connected to their own lives. Their teachers collaborated to create the Life Interrupted educational resources.

Arkansas’ Forgotten: Japanese American Internment Camps

With the purpose of educating their community about the World War II camps in Arkansas, middle school students from Horace Mann Arts and Science Magnet School EAST Lab in Little Rock, produced a documentary interweaving interviews with former Rohwer and Jerome inmates and home movies shot in the camps. The student filmmakers screened this award-winning documentary at the September 2004 conference.

Lasting Beauty: High School Muralists

Inspired by the images and objects depicting the Japanese American incarceration experience, high school students from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet designed and created a mural. Displayed at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Fine Arts Building, community members were invited to help with the painting. In 2005, the mural was brought to Los Angeles for display at the Japanese American National Museum as part of the Lasting Beauty exhibition.

Video:
Quicktime, 4MB
Windows Media, 3.9MB

Camp Connections

Using lessons from our nation’s history, former inmates, their families, scholars, students and educators participate in dialogue and share their personal experiences and discuss the complexities of civil rights, democracy and social justice.

Video:
Quicktime, 10MB
Windows Media, 8.9MB

A Return to Rohwer and Jerome

More than a thousand people made an emotional pilgrimage to the former Jerome and Rohwer camp sites in southeast Arkansas. Deeply affected by their return to a place and time, former internees reflect on the history and emotions of a community forged more than 60 years ago.

Exhibitions

The opening of eight exhibitions in Little Rock explore the unconstitutional imprisonment of Japanese Americans in Arkansas, the heroic legacy of Japanese American military service during World War II and the striking art created behind barbed wire.

Keynote Speeches

Nationally noted speakers reflect on civil rights and democracy and what these issues mean today. Speakers include:

  • Sybil Jordan Hampton, Ed.D., President, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
  • Irene Hirano, President & CEO, Japanese American National Museum
  • Senator Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii
  • Senator Mark Pryor, Arkansas
  • Win Rockefeller, Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas
  • George Takei