The Japanese American Experience of WWII featuring Alton Chung

Please join storyteller, Alton Takiyama-Chung for an evening of stories of the JAPANESE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE OF WWII. BEN KUROKI was the only Japanese American allowed to fly in the Pacific during WWII. Having survived 30 missions over Europe and even with a chest full of medals, a white person refused to share a cab with him during the War. Fifty years after the War he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his incredible war record and for his fight against racism. SAGEBRUSH SANTA is about what it may have been like during that first Christmas in the Minidoka Incarceration Camp in 1942. Mako Nakagawa gave me permission to tell her story called ONARA. At seven years old, she and her friends in Camp pondered the difference between Japanese people and White people. TWO LIVES is about Sadaichi Kubota and Tadao “Beanie” Hiyashi. They were friends and members of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team, the all Japanese American unit which fought in Europe in WWII. One of them was killed near the end of the war. Sixty years later, the survivor returned to honor his friend. There will be a Talk Back session after the performance.

Alton’s one-man shows are riveting. Humorous and poignant, nostalgic and gripping, these dramatic monologues transport you away to another time and place where you experience a different slice of life, before being brought safely back home. Shows include Asian folk tales, stories and legends from Hawaii, and ghost stories, but he is most known for his stories which portray the Japanese American Experience of WWII. Alton has performed at the Performing Arts Center in Singapore, the Hipbone Studio in Portland, OR, the Totah Theater in Farmington, NM, the Okinawa Center in Aiea, HI, the Walters Performing Arts Center in Hillsboro, OR, the Oakland Cultural Center in Oakland, CA, the Performing Arts Center in Hilo, HI, the Coho Theater in Portland, OR, the Torrance Performing Arts Center in Torrance, CA, and the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco, CA.