Keiko Wright’s “Hiro: A Story of Japanese Internment” will be screened on Saturday, July 27, at 2 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum, 100 N. Central Ave. in Little Tokyo.
A gold medal winner at the 38th annual Student Academy Awards, “Hiro” is a short documentary exploring the life of Hiroshi “Hiro” Hoshizaki, a retired aeronautical engineer. At age 12, Hiro, an American-born citizen, and his family were forcibly removed from their home, along with 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The voices of “Hiro” tell a story of the political hysteria, racism, and scars that internment evoked during the World War II era — feelings that still echo to this day.
As we follow Hiro — now a retired grandfather of six — on his journey to confront the events and memories of his adolescence, we learn of his experiences while imprisoned at the Heart Mountain in Wyoming and the traumatic repercussions this experience has had on him, his family, and the following generations.
Q&A with filmmaker to follow.
A native of Chicago, Wright graduated in 2011 from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she received a BFA with a concentration in film and television post-production. She has directed and produced several short-form documentaries and currently works as a freelance editor in New York City.
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