Abuse inflicted on Marine focus of documentary
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
| • | 'A Most Unlikely Hero'
Premiere, 2 p.m. Sunday, University of Hawai'i School of Architecture Auditorium 8 p.m. Wednesday, PBS |
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This is not to say that the moment isn't gratifying, just inevitable. In one compelling hour, Okino (who wrote, directed and produced the piece) walks his audience through a shocking but all-too-common injustice, and later a historic fight for remediation, with much of the skill and clarity the officer-candidate-turned-civil-rights-icon demonstrated in his five-year fight against the Marine Corps.
Like a good lawyer, Okino makes it clear that there can be only just conclusion for his film.
The long-awaited documentary premieres Sunday at the University of Hawai'i and will be broadcast Wednesday on PBS Hawaii.
Yamashita, a third-generation Japanese American from Hawai'i, was the central figure in a protracted legal challenge that exposed systematic racial discrimination at the Marine's prestigious Officer Candidate School.
Yamashita entered the school in 1989 with an impressive background that included all-state football honors in high school and a juris doctorate from Georgetown University.
Yet, from the onset, Yamashita was subjected to racial taunts and other discriminatory treatment from the school's officers. One officer would only speak to him in broken Japanese, another told him that "we don't want your kind around here." At one point, an officer threw a wastebasket at Yamashita's head during a private meeting. The discrimination was observed and eventually adopted by Yamashita's fellow candidates.
Just before graduation, after completing the requisite nine weeks of training, Yamashita was "disenrolled" from the program on the basis of an unsatisfactory grade for leadership. That final humiliating act sparked a call for redress that would sound unabated for five years.
With support from the Japanese American Citizens League and other civil-rights groups, Yamashita called on the Marines to admit their wrongdoing, retroactively award his commission, and implement specific rules against racial discrimination.
Yamashita and his supporters persisted as the Marines acknowledged his claims but stonewalled efforts to correct the situation. It wasn't until the then-new Clinton administration made it a priority to address a string of military scandals that the case was finally resolved, and Yamashita was commissioned as a captain (the rank he would likely have attained had he been allowed to graduate and proceed with his military career).
Thanks to a carefully calculated public awareness campaign Yamashita supporters undertook in the early 1990s, much of Yamashita's story has been told and retold in national broadcast and print media. What Okino's documentary adds to the discussion is a more in-depth accounting of the abuse Yamashita was subjected to at the school, and greater insight into Yamashita's motivations for pursuing the fight.
The documentary features interviews with many of the major players from Yamashita's support team, including co-counsels Clayton Ikei and Ernie Kimoto, as well as Dale Minami (counsel in the historic Korematsu v. United States case) and Frederick Pang, a former assistant secretary of the Navy who negotiated the resolution of Yamashita's case.
Scenes of current OCS classes going through their extensive and exhaustive training are included. Yamashita is also filmed at OCS, detailing the mistreatments he endured in the locations they occurred.
It's Yamashita himself who keeps the documentary from lapsing into a monotone chorus of admiration and self-congratulation. His matter-of-fact accounts of the long, frustrating battle and his openness in evaluating his own thoughts and behavior lend the project a greater sense of credibility. At one point, Yamashita says that growing up in Hawai'i left him unprepared to face racism on the Mainland, and he admits that he once thought of racial civil-rights groups on the Georgetown campus as "whiners and complainers."
"I was a blind man in a world of color," he says in the documentary. "I was ignorant."
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2461.
