What We Could Carry: The Story of Japanese American Students during Internment

On February 19, 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 with the intention of preventing espionage on American shores.  Life would never be the same for Japanese Americans, many 4th and 5th generation. 

At the same time in California, Washington and Oregon, another tragic and largely untold story played out, when West Coast Japanese American college life on campuses from UCLA to Stanford to University of Oregon, came to a sudden end as well as hundreds of these students were expelled from campuses and prevented from graduating. 

This is the story of 24 of those Japanese American students at the University of Oregon in 1942 who were forced from campus, subjected to extreme racism, and denied their rightfully earned diplomas there and the pioneering efforts of the University of Oregon to shine a light on this dark history and to award these 24 students with diplomas and with a reunion and event that brought they and their families from all over the United States to celebrate and to educate students everywhere what happened to them and could happen to others. 

With the military order to evacuate the west coast, the students face a choice; follow their families to the internment camps, or defy curfews to flee inland and continue their education. Through 6 inter-woven personal narratives, discover the greater story of the 110,000 Japanese Americans forced from their homes with nothing more than what they could carry.

Guggenheim Fellowship and American Book Award winner Lawson Inada is featured.

Clips from the Film