One of the earliest documentaries to broach the topic of Japanese American wartime incarceration, Mitsuye and Nellie profiles Asian American poets Mitsuye Yamada and Nellie Wong, showing them reading their poetry, meeting their family and visiting the Minidoka and Angel Island sites.
See this item in the Densho Resource Guide at Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets.
See this item in the Densho Digital Repository at: https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1024-37/.
IMBD: Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets
Movie Review: “Up from Invisibility”
FREEDOM SOCIALIST PARTY | NANCY REIKO KATO | FALL 1982
Allie Light, a teacher at San Francisco State University, was gathering materials for a film festival on women writers. She ran into a problem: she couldn’t find information on Asian Americans.
Asians are invisible, isolated, their oppression negated through lack of mention, and their history blanketed under the myth of the “model minority,” which stereotypes them as successes who can be safely ignored because they have “made it.”
Light decided to lift the veil of ignorance. With filmmaker Irving Saraf, she created a rare cinematic document, “Mitsuye and Nellie, Asian American Poets.” This sensitive, moving and witty film explores the thoughts and writings of two strong-minded, highly-visible feminists.
The film interweaves the poetry of Nellie Wong and Mitsuye Yamada with frank discussions between the two artists on racism and sexism, with rare historical footage and still photographs, and with recent Asian American history as retold by the women’s families.
It is a fascinating movie.
The Poetry Center Digital Archive: Mitsuye Yamada’s 100 birthday
On September 23, 2023, The Poetry Center presented a poets’ reading and tribute in honor of Mitsuye Yamada’s 100th birthday, hosted by Brynn Saito and Brandon Shimoda, and co-organized with them and Hedi Yamada Mouchard.
This online event features readings and tributes by Marilyn Chin, Chrystos, doris diosa davenport, W. Todd Kaneko, traci kato-kiriyama, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Cherríe Moraga, and Nellie Wong. Their presentations are followed by a reading by Mitsuye Yamada of her poetry, from Full Circle: New and Selected Poems (UC Santa Barbara Asian American Studies, 2019), recorded to video the day before the September 23, 2023 webcast. The video program concludes with a gathering of photos as shared at the start of the webcast. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/poetrycenter/bundles/239626
Co Host Brandon Shimoda introduces Nellie (@ -42:56) who speaks generously to her and Yamada’s longstanding friendship, and recalls the Allie Light and Irving Sarah’s invitation to film Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (@ -41:45). Nellie then reads a newly written piece, “For Mitsu.” (-@38.16)