Hear ER member interview about zainichi on APEX 94.1FM

Check out ER member interview on the Bay Area's favorite Asian-American radio program on KPFA - talking about being a zainichi Korean growing up, minority communities in Japan and, last but not least, ER efforts and activities - one of which is the zainichi film screenings like the one below! We chose to show HARUKO because it's a montage of such precious historical footage from 1940s Japan, unfolding such a radically different picture of Japan's postwar national reconstruction and development (led by the US via the GHQ to solidify a solid US-aligned regime) than the dominant version that we may think of. Haruko lived through it all - from Cheju Island to the back alleys of bomb-decimated Tokyo, to the infamous Omura Detention Center (to detan "illegal immigrants"), to the home that was hers, along with her eight children...and her son, a cameraman, shares a montage of footage of his mother he collected over a 40 year period, weaving in his talkstory that will have you walk away with an entirely fresh notion of the modern Japanese society and the people that comprise this so-called 'homogenous' landscape.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/47797 The interview is about the last 15 min. of the show.

zainichi can vote???

how does it affect the debates around zainichi koreans' voting rights in japan?
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2900205

Ruling and opposition lawmakers on the National Assembly’s special committee on political reform struck an agreement yesterday to give suffrage to all Koreans living overseas, starting in the 2012 legislative elections. A legislative subcommittee met yesterday to revise the election law. The plan will give the right to vote to 3 million Koreans living overseas who are over 19 years old, including 1.47 million who are registered residents of foreign countries. The special committee will meet again next Thursday to endorse the revision bill and vote on it at the full voting session on Feb. 2. While they can cast ballots to elect a Korean president and proportional representatives of the National Assembly, they will not be able to vote in local elections. Eligible Korean residents in other countries will have to register to vote before the April 2012 legislative elections. The registration period will start 150 days prior to the election and end 60 days before it. They will cast ballots at nearby Korean missions or alternate locations such as Korean community centers or schools. Ballots sent by mail or from deep-sea fishing vessels, which can be at sea for months at a time, will not be accepted.

Zainichi Film Series: Haruko

Proudly, as part of the Final Fridays Films, and the 2009 Bay Area Zainichi Film Series, EastSide Arts Alliance & Eclipse Rising present...

HARUKO
Friday, January 30 at 7pm
at the EastSide Cultural Center
2277 International Blvd. at 23rd Ave., Oakland
510.533.6629
DELICIOUS REFRESHMENTS & COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
A free event

Haruko
a documentary film directed by Kazuyuki Nozawa, 2004

HARUKO is a spunky and high spirited 87-year old Zainichi Korean (Korean living in Japan) from Tokyo. This documentary, filmed by her son who worked for the pro-North Korea association of Zainichi called So-ren (chongryon in hangul) as a cameraman, includes footage collected as far back as 40 years ago. The film depicts the hardships and sacrifices a single mother endured in order to raise her eight children in Japan, a society with a long history of hostility toward Koreans in Japan, despite the end of Japanese colonial rule over Korea in 1945

Eclipse Rising is a US-based Zainichi Korean group founded in the winter of 2008, by seven Zainichi Korean women who came together in the Bay Area to recognize and celebrate the rich and unique history of Koreans in Japan, promote Zainichi community development, peace and reunification, and work for social justice for all minorities in Japan. This screening kicks off a quarterly Zainichi Film Festival produced by Eclipse Rising and screened at the EastSide Cultural Center.

Final Fridays Films of Resistance and Solidarity, a free monthly community event produced by EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA), screens on the last Friday of every month and is funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. ESAA is dedicated to nurturing and supporting the work of the Lower San Antonio District's African American, Latino/ Chicano, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous artists and cultural workers, many of whom have not found a home within Oakland's mainstream arts community.

Final Fridays Films

• free community event •

wheelchair accessible

DIRECTIONS:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&address=2277+International+Blvd.&city=Oakland&state=CA&zipcode=94606
From BART, get off on Fruitvale BART and walk several blocks west on International Boulevard or walk 1 block north to International Boulevard and take 1R bus west to East Side Arts Alliance. For travel planner link, http://tripplanner.transit.511.org/mtc/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?#tab1Selected

Eastside Arts Alliance website: www.eastsideartsalliance.com

For questions about Eclipse Rising or to be on the list-serve for Eclipse Rising, please e-mail eclipserising@gmail.com