On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we're discussing Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, an award winning documentary that explores the history of Native Americans who were forced out of their ancestral lands in what is now called Owens Valley, which is 230 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Their forced removal made way for white settlers and 11,070 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in the Valley’s Manzanar camp from March 1942 to November 1945.
In the film, we meet intergenerational women from Native American, Japanese American, and rancher communities who form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which bought out much of valley to supply fresh water to the growing population in Los Angeles.
Guests:
Ann Kaneko, award winning independent documentary filmmaker, and director of Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Jin Yoo-Kim, Korean-Bolivian-American independent film producer, and producer of Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Web Resources:
MANZANAR, DIVERTED: When Water Becomes Dust
Los Angeles Times: How to remember the Japanese incarceration, 80 years later
Los Angeles Times: Owens Valley tribes honor a legacy of ‘beauty and suffering’ with historic site nomination