A movie featuring first hand accounts of the Issei experience hasn’t been seen in almost 30 years.
But that’s about to change thanks to a bootleg copy and some detective work that located the original filmmaker, reports Rafu Shimpo.
Issei: The First Generation was released in 1984 and only shown a few times in the Bay Area.
The film then disappeared until Lane Hirabayashi got hold of a bootleg copy and began showing it to his Asian American Studies students at UCLA. He then went on a quest to find the filmmaker, Toshi Washizu.
“A friend just accidentally copied it in 1984 on probably a not very new or very good VHS recorder,” said Hirabayashi. “Also omitted about the first 10 or 15 seconds … I wanted to ask for a decent copy of his film so I could better show his interviews with Walnut Grove area Issei in my classes.”
Hirabayashi was told Washizu had returned to Japan, but after an online search, learned that was incorrect. Toshi was actually in the Bay Area.
Issei has been now digitally restored and updated and is available on DVD.
You can learn more about the film and how its been updated in Rafu Shimpo.
You can watch a clip of Lane and Toshi discussing the film below.