Pledging Allegiance

HEART MOUNTAIN HEARTBREAK:  Last night we had the opportunity to attend a special screening of the Broadway musical "Allegiance" at a local movie theater. I posted a bit about it yesterday, but I'll let the kids share some more.

Here are Annabelle's impressions ...

Allegiance is a Broadway musical about a young man namedSammy and his time in a Japanese-American prison camp during World War II. He and his family are forced to move out of their house and abandon their farm because they were of Japanese heritage. They were sent to Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Wyoming, and they were only allowed to bring what they could carry. In the internment camp, they were kept in a horse stall and were treated likeprisoners. They couldn’t  even get aspirin or cough syrup from the nurse- those were for military use only.

Life in the camp was hard, and  many people became sick and died because of
the conditions. Eventually, they started a campaign to allow Japanese-Americans
to join the army. The request is done and Sammy applies to the army, while others
in the camp revolt and protest about being forced to fight, including his own
sister, and start a rebellion. While he is away, many of his friends, family and
loved ones die or become ill. He comes back as a war hero, but is torn apart by
how his family has died and his sister is now married to his greatest enemy.
Flash forward to the present, his niece gives him another chance to reconnect
with his family.

The musical was a story from George Takei, who went to an internment camp when he was only 5. The characters are fictitious, but the hardships of living in an internment camp were real. For a musical, the songs were less than stellar, but still good. I wish there was a little less singing, actually. And the choreography was not the best either. All in all, it was good, but not the most amazing Broadway play either.

CJ's review  ... 

George Takei is a world-famous actor known for playing Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the Enterprise, on most of the Star Trek television shows and movies (except for the J.J. Abrams film series). In 1941, when Takei was four years old, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Air Force unexpectedly attacked Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii. In what I presume to be a result of not differentiating "normal citizen of Japanese descent" and "foreign spy that needs to be put in check", the then-president, Franklin Roosevelt, issued an order that forced nearly all American citizens of Japanese descent on the west coast to relocate to an internment camp. Takei's family was one of many Japanese-American families that were forced into an internment camp (in their case, the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming).

Takei's family survived the 4 grueling years, and, more than seventy years later, George Takei would help create Allegiance, a Broadway musical based loosely on his experiences in Heart Mountain (what I will call the internment camp from this point on). Allegiance is a two-act play primarily (though not entirely) set around the Kimura family, a fictional Asian-American family that must get by in the poor conditions of Heart Mountain.

Here be spoilers. ...

Throughout the play, there are twenty-five songs, from "Gaman", named for a Japanese word that means "endure", obviously referring to surviving the difficult conditions of the internment camp, to "Still a Chance", a ballad about how an aged Sam Kimura (the main character of Allegiance) still has a chance to be forgiven (or forgive, I honestly couldn't tell). However, none of the songs are real showstoppers, so that's a disappointment. While most of the cast was good (including George Takei himself as an elderly Sam Kimura and "Ojii-san"), the choreography was odd at best and abysmal at worst. For example, in several parts of the play, the actors repeat strange arm motions that aren't quite dabs for whatever reason, and there's a cringe-inducing sequence during a song where some of the actors pretend to swing baseball bats in an awkward manner. The death scenes are often disjointed and confusing, such as the main character's brother dying after being shot on the battlefield, and then having the dog tags get taken off his corpse by Mike Masaoka, who appears out of thin air.

While Allegiance is an enjoyable musical (and might be worth a watch), it still came off as kinda lackluster with poor songwriting and abysmal choreography, among other flaws.

Interesting note: On the way out of the theater, I heard chitchat about two Heart Mountain survivors being present at that showing. While entering the men's room after the showing, I saw a very elderly Asian man who may or may not be one of the survivors I heard about.

So yeah, the kids aren't easily impressed. But that's OK and they are entitled to their opinions and there's probably a reason the show, despite all its publicity and funding, only had a four month run on Broadway. ... 



Still, it was a story worth telling. For instance, a central part of the musical involved a questionnaire internees had to fill out, the  "Leave Clearance Form," and two questions in particular: The questionnaire was given to all adults in camp, and most of the 28 questions contained wherein were designed to assess the "Americanness" of the respondent. It asked about education (was it n Japan or the U.S.), religion (Buddhist or Christian?), and even whether or not people practiced judo or played baseball. 


The most contentious part of the form were questions 27 and 28, also known as the "loyalty questionnaire." They were ... Question 27: Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty, wherever ordered? And Question 28: Will you swear unqualified allegiances to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any and all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?




Those questions became a major point of contention. Many viewed the questions as confusing and offending and wondered about the implications and objected. When drafted, some opposed and were imprisoned. 

Meanwhile, other Japanese Americans were eager to sign up for the war effort. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was a fighting unit composed almost entirely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry who fought in World War II. According to Wikipedia, the 442nd Regiment was the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of American warfare. Its motto was "Go for Broke".




I thought "Allegiance" did a terrific job portraying the divide between those eager to enlist, and those who resisted the draft. Both were shown to be heroic in their own ways.


There is a present day nonprofit that has a Heart Mountain has a Web site, complete with a . virtual tour, which they invite you to 'enjoy.' http://heartmountain.org/virtualtour.html  






Honestly, I was surprised by how surprisingly 'light hearted' so many of the elements on the site are given the gravity of what happened.



Following links on their site, The Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation (HMWF) was formed in 1996 as a public nonprofit corporation and obtained its federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in 1997.  Its board is 15 members, led by Shirley Ann Higuchi, a descendant of Heart Mountain incarcerees. The Board includes former internees, descendants, scholars and other local and national professionals from across the country. So, obviously, they all know a lot more about what happened at Heart Mountain than I do.