The Japanese American Experience of WWII featuring Alton Chung
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time
- Saturday, Sep 12, 2026 7pm - 9pm
Location
Indiana Historical Society
450 West Ohio Street
Details
Join storyteller Alton Takiyama-Chung for an evening of stories of the Japanese-American Experience of WWII. There will be a talkback session after the performance.
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 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 442nd 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.
