Emmy Award-winning journalist Ann Curry returns to television with six-part series We’ll Meet Again, premiering on PBS tomorrow.
The former Today show co-anchor is the main host and co-executive producer of the documentary series, which recounts the reunions of people who met during pivotal moments in history.
The first episode, titled Children of WWII, explores the journeys of Japanese American internment camp victims and inhabitants of the “Jewish ghetto” in Shanghai. Later episodes tell stories from the Vietnam War, the 9/11 terror attacks, and the eruption of Mount St. Helen, among others.
“This series helps people separated by conflict, war and humanitarian disasters find each other again and reveals untold stories of courage, survival, friendship and even love,” Curry said in a PBS announcement. “This is human history — not from the point of view of kings or politicians or generals — but of everyday people on the front lines of massive events they have no way to control.”
Curry told the Center of Asian American Media in an interview that her parents’ history influenced the storytelling in We’ll Meet Again. Curry’s parents, Bob Curry and Hiroe Nagase, met when he was stationed in Japan during the aftermath of WWII; according to Woman’s Day, they were forbidden by the Navy from marrying for two years.
At the time, American servicemen were discouraged from marrying Japanese women. The Navy transferred Curry’s dad and it took him two years to get the Navy to station him in Japan again. When he arrived he immediately traveled to her rural village and the two ran into each other’s arms. The rest is history.
“My mother would say ganbaru, which is a Japanese word which means you never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up,” Curry said in the interview. “This lesson is deep within me. And the power of their resilience is deep within me. I think my own personal history in my own family has made it very clear to me how powerful these stories are.”
We’ll Meet Again premieres on Tuesday, January 23, at 8 PM. It is co-produced by Blink Films and Ann Curry, Inc.
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