Jeanne Sakata
Jeanne Sakata is a Sansei actress and playwright living in Los Angeles, California. She has been acting since 1983 at regional theatres across the country and in film and television. She was an LA Ovation Award Winner for Best Lead Actress in a Play for her portrayal of male Beijing opera star Master Hua in Chay Yew's Red at East West Players. She has recently appeared on East West Players stage as the famed opera diva Maria Callas in Master Class. Other recent performances include Naomi Iizuka's Citizen 13559: The Journal of Ben Uchida at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and in Phaedra at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.
Updated November 2007
Stories from This Author
The Journey of Dawn’s Light: Telling the Story of Gordon Hirabayashi
Nov. 8, 2007 • Jeanne Sakata
I first heard about Gordon Hirabayashi over ten years ago, through a video I saw on PBS titled A Personal Matter. I was very intrigued by the story, and started to do more research on Gordon through resources such as Peter Irons' books The Courage of Their Convictions and Justice at War. The more I heard, the more fascinated I became. I wondered why, as a Sansei, I had never heard Gordon's story before. After all, as a child, hadn't …