By Louis Chan
AsAmNews National Correspondent
There’s something about the television camera that causes people to button up. The sight of a big lens pointed at a subject can be intrusive and it takes a skillful interviewer to gain the trust of their interviews and to get them to share intimate details and the raw emotions that go with it.
Ann Curry is definitely among the best at empathizing with her interviewees and its the viewer that’s the beneficiary.
Tuesday night’s premiere of We’ll Meet Again struck all the right emotional cords.
Through her storytelling, Curry found a different way to explore the plight of Japanese Americans and the Jewish community during World War II.
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She told the story of Reiko Nagumo, a Japanese American befriended by a White classmate during before, during and after World War II. Despite the racial animosity of her classmates and her parents, Mary Francis remained a true friend through the incarceration camps that imprisoned 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
Curry follows Reiko’s story and her search for Mary Francis, seven decades later.
On the other side of the country, Peter Engler recalled the couple that became his second parents after Peter’s family escaped Nazi Germany to Shanghai, then an open port and a refuge for thousands of Jews.
Peter was determined to reconnect with that couple by finding their daughter, Margaret. Margaret was just a newborn when Peter last saw her. Could he find her? Would Margaret even know who he was? If she did, it would be reaffirmation about how much he meant to the family and how much the family meant to him.
We’ll Meet Again is a wonderful way to tell history through the people that lived it. The debut episode is definitely worthy of Emmy consideration. During this time of blue states versus red states, conservatives versus liberal, it’s great to have a program that showcases our humanity. compassion and caring for each other.
We’ll Meet Again is a six episode series. Hopefully the remainder of the episodes will be able to maintain the quality of the first.
If that quality is maintained, let’s hope We’ll Meet Again returns for a second season.
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