Title: And Then They Came For Us
Grade Range: 7th-12th grade
Duration: 50 minutes
ABOUT THE MOVIE
“And Then They Came For Us” is an account of what happened to people of Japanese ancestry in the United States when Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December, 7, 1941. After the bombing, the federal government, through President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, put into place the removal of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes on the west coast of the United States, and to the incarceration of these people in prison camps during World War II. “And Then They Came For Us” educates audiences about the constitutional damage done in the name of national security. Thousands of American citizens lost their homes, their businesses and their families due to war hysteria and racism. Yet the validity of these actions were upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1944, based on governmental lies which were later uncovered. Featuring Japanese Americans who were incarcerated, rediscovered photos of Dorothea Lange and the story of Fred Korematsu’s long journey to justice, the film brings history into the present, as it follows Japanese Americans speaking out against the current Muslim travel ban and other regressive immigration policies.
