From DiscoverNikkei.org
Art Nomura
Filmmaker
Artist's statement:
- I have been a documentary film and video maker for over twenty-five years. One of my earliest works, Refugees from Laos -- A Hill Tribe in West Oakland (1981), a documentary about the relocation of Yu Mien refugees from the Vietnam War, clearly roots my interests in topics involving social upheaval and adjustment. Similarly, many of my succeeding works such as Wok Like a Man (1987), Getting Along (1992), Buckaroo Boy (1996), and my one-hour dramatic pilot for television, Lotusland (1991), explore and illuminate issues of race, identity, and the relationship of the minority to the mainstream.
- I am a Professor in the School of Film and Television at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I am married and have three children. My oldest, Christopher, lived in Japan for five years as a post-doctoral biochemical researcher at the Riken Institute in Saitama. His enthusiasm for Japan was a prime motivator for my first time visit to Japan in 2003 as a Fulbright Research Grantee. During my nearly five months there I shot Finding Home (2006), a one hour documentary about Japanese Americans who have chosen to live in Japan instead of America.
- I have lived and traveled internationally extensively. In the winter/spring of 1997, I lived and taught Portuguese graduate students at the Catholic University in Porto, Portugal. In the summer of 1998 I taught at the Rome, Italy, extension of Loyola University Chicago. In the fall of 1999, I taught at the Academy for International Education in Bonn, Germany, as part of Loyola Marymount's New Europe Study Abroad program. In August 2002, I enjoyed the company and the accompanying dialogue with artists in Edinburgh, Scotland, and London. I enjoy the challenge of living in foreign countries and the attendant opportunities for personal growth and development. My background includes a colorful childhood in mostly African American south central Los Angeles, followed by a stint in Orange County (California) European American suburbia, followed by high school in Latino East Los Angeles.
- For further information about Art Nomura and his creative work, please visit http://www.artnomura.com.
Nomura has contributed footage from video interviews done as part of his 2005 documentary Finding Home to the [http:/en/people/ Discover Nikkei video archives].