Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo

Days of Waiting (1990) is a documentary short film by Steven Okazaki, about Estelle Ishigo, a Caucasian artist who went voluntarily to an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. The film was inspired by Ishigo's book, "Lone Heart Mountain", and won an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject^[1] and a Peabody Award.

Background

During World War II, when 110,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from the West Coast to various American concentration camps, Estelle Peck Ishigo refused to be separated from her Nisei (second generation Japanese American) husband. She voluntarily accompanied him to the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center. A painter and illustrator, Ishigo documented her experience through her art. She later published these works and wrote about her experience in her book, "Lone Heart Mountain," which along with personal papers, were the basis of the film. She was discovered living in destitution in her senior years, by the filmmakers as they researched her story.

Awards

• Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject - 63rd Academy Awards (1991)
• Peabody Award – as presentation in PBS TV series, P.O.V. (1991)
• Gran Prix, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (1991)

References

External links

• Days of Waiting at the Internet Movie Database
• Days of Waiting on farallon films site
• Lone Heart Mountain manuscript by Estelle Ishigo, at the Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA, via Calisphere.