I spent my boyhood behind the barbed wire fences of American internment camps and that part of my life is something that I wanted to share with more people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
You know, I grew up in two American internment camps, and at that time I was very young.
I think my whole life has been shaped by my childhood incarceration in America's concentration camps.
My childhood memories include a time when the government confiscated my family's possessions and exiled us to a camp in the B.C. Interior, just because my grandparents were from Japan.
It has long been a dream of mine that this important story one day would be told on the great American stage of Broadway. In fact, I've dedicated much of the latter half of my life to ensuring the story of the internment is known.
I did a film called 'Fort McCoy,' based on a true story of one of the few internment camps during WWII that was actually in the United States.
Once I was able to take care of myself and my children, I then wanted to share.
I remembered some people who lived across the street from our home as we were being taken away. When I was a teenager, I had many after-dinner conversations with my father about our internment. He told me that after we were taken away, they came to our house and took everything. We were literally stripped clean.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the color of my skin and my rather peculiar background as an Ethiopian immigrant delineated the border of my life and friendships. I learned quickly how to stand alone.
Doing what we can to repair the world was instilled in me from an early age. I will never forget my siblings and me knitting squares for blankets to be sent to the troops during World War II. This was an inspiration from my mother.
Then when I went to Iraq and saw the strength and character the men and women in our military service exhibit every day and their belief in what they're doing, I knew I wanted to get that on film and share it with everyone. They are my inspiration.
No opposing quotes found.