SPECIAL FILM SCREENING OF ‘FAREWELL TO MANZANAR’
WITH APPEARANCES BY AUTHOR HOUSTON, DIRECTOR KORTY
TO CONCLUDE ANSEL ADAMS AT MANZANAR EXHIBITION RUN FEB. 18

LOS ANGELES.—The highly popular installation of the traveling exhibition, Ansel Adams at Manzanar, concludes with a special film screening of the landmark made-for-television movie, “Farewell to Manzanar”, highlighted by appearances by authors Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her husband James D. Houston and the film’s director John Korty on Sunday, February 18, beginning at 2 p.m., at the Japanese American National Museum.

Ansel Adams at Manzanar, organized by the Honolulu Academy of Arts, features over 50 vintage prints by America’s most famous landscape photographer of life in an American World War II concentration camp used to unconstitutionally incarcerate Japanese Americans. Manzanar was located at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, an area familiar to Adams, who visited the camp in 1943 and 1944 in hopes of creating material for a book that would convince the general public that Japanese Americans were as American as anybody else. His work reflects that hope, showing the unfairly imprisoned population working, attending school and playing sports.

Curated by Dr. Anne Hammond, the exhibition features prints created by Adams himself which are now part of the collections of the Library of Congress; Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona; Honolulu Academy of Arts; and the Japanese American National Museum. Ansel Adams at Manzanar premiered at the Honolulu Academy of Arts last September and the National Museum is the only other venue for this exhibition, which closes Sunday, February 18.

During the war, Wakatsuki Houston was imprisoned at Manzanar with her family when she was a little girl. Originally reluctant to discuss her experiences, Wakatsuki Houston was motivated to write about them by a young relative, who wanted to know more about life in camp. Working with her husband James, Wakatsuki Houston wrote the autobiographic Farewell to Manzanar, which was published in 1973. Director John Korty, who has directed dozens of made-for-TV movies, including “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” with Cecily Tyson, turned the book into a television movie in 1976 starring Nobu McCarthy and Yuki Shimoda as Jeanne’s parents. Both the book and the movie have been used by schools across the country as a way to teach students about the false imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans by the United States government.

The Houstons and Korty will be part of a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Akemi Kikumura-Yano, who appeared in the film as Jeanne’s sister-in-law. This presentation is made possible, in part, by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. Space is limited. To make reservations, call the Japanese American National Museum at (213) 625-0414. For more information on Ansel Adams at Manzanar, go to www.janm.org. The National Museum is closed on Mondays and open Tuesday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. except Thursday, when it closes at 8 p.m.