The Journey of Dawn’s Light: Telling the Story of Gordon Hirabayashi
The Journey of Dawn’s Light: Telling the Story of Gordon HirabayashiBy 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 I learned about Rosa Parks' courageous refusal to go the back of a segregated bus during the 1960s? Gordon had taken a similar stand against racism two decades earlier in the 1940s—and he was only 24 when he did so! Why didn't the history books mention him as well? So I embarked on a journey to find out all I could. As fate would have it, I got a job acting in a play up in Seattle, Washington, where I met a young woman who had just interviewed Gordon for a term paper she was writing. She encouraged me to contact him, and when I did, he graciously agreed to meet me for some interviews. His alma mater, the University of Washington in Seattle, also had a wonderful collection of his letters, written to a friend during the wartime years. I also managed to track down several of his college friends, who shared with me some wonderful memories they had of Gordon. So, on my day off from performing the play, I'd bicycle over to the campus, and bury myself in the UW Special Collections Department, trying to absorb the story through his letters, and trying to envision the best way to convey it dramatically.
Photos by Michael Lamont, courtesy of East West Players. The actor portraying all character is Ryun Yu. 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. |
My husband and I went to see this past Saturday evening's performance of Dawn's Light. It was such an inspiring story. Although I knew about Gordon Hirabayashi and his coram nobis case, I didn't know the details of his personal life and how he came to make the decision.
The play has a single actor, Ryun Yu, on stage the entire time with no intermission. He portrays Gordon Hirabayashi sharing the story of his life in a very personal, talk-story type of way. He presents the character as a very personable, engaging, warm, optimistic, and human person. Through what is shared, you get the snippets of his background that explain how Gordon Hirabayashi's morals and beliefs were shaped. From his parents, from things that happened to him growing up, the racism and discrimination he faced, going to college, trying to find a job, joining the Quakers, his involvement with the YMCA, and with friends. Everything in him believed that he was an American and that the Constitution would protect him. To see his heart broken so many times as it failed him was heart-wrenching, particularly knowing that this really happened. At the end, when his conviction was overturned and he was vindicated, I felt triumphant as well.
Although I knew about the case and so was able to anticipate some things, there were many things that I learned that surprised me. I didn't know about how he hitch-hiked from Washington to Arizona. That story is pretty telling of the type of person Gordon Hirabayashi is. At the end of the play, like many of my favorite East West Players productions, it left me wanting to learn more. The play is based on Gordon's true story, so I wanted to learn more to figure out the truth from fiction.
Dawn's Light runs through December 2, 2007 at East West Players. If you have an opportunity to go see it, I really recommend it. Go see it because it's an important story that every American should know about. Go see it to support East West Players, Asian American theater, and to applaud Jeanne Sakata in bringing this to the public.