Citizenship, life in the camps, cultural strains, familial strains, racism, the 442nd infantry, and childhood under incarceration, among others, are prominent themes in the story.ДЄmerican PastimeВ is also better than the other mainstream movies dealing with Japanese American incarceration during World War II, namely Snow Falling on CedarsВ (1999, Universal Pictures) and Come See the ParadiseВ (1990, Twentieth Century Fox). American PastimeВ also thoughtfully delves into several of the central themes of the internment experience. It also illustrates the power of baseball-aided by an undercurrent of the power of jazz-to bring folks together and survive difficult times. It is easy to follow, and middle to high school students should have no problem keeping track of the major plot turns and characters. There is a lot to like about American Pastime. Suffice to say, without giving up too much more of the plot, sometimes dignity simply rests upon the outcome of a ballgame and a haircut. Tully refuses to give Lyle a haircut because he doesnвЂ™t cut вЂњJapвЂќ hair and the story culminates in a baseball game where the Camp Topaz team squares off against the local Abraham semi-pro team, predictably led by Sgt. Nearing the final act of the film, when Lyle returns home a war hero-minus one leg, he heads for a local barbershop run by Ed Tully, player for the local semi-pro baseball team and resident racist of Abraham. But while Lane serves as the protagonist, the struggle for dignity ultimately binds both brothers. We get to watch him go through all of the alienation, pain, suffering, and even intermittent good times that happen during day-to-day survival in the camps. He is obedient, doesnвЂ™t cause problems, listens to his father, and even joins the 442nd Infantry?a segregated regiment of all Japanese American soldiers who earned great fame as fighters during World War II.ДЄfter Lyle goes off to war, Lane becomes the central character in American Pastime. Lyle, on the other hand, is the вЂњgoodвЂќ son. He is a baseball pitcher, and he lost his baseball scholarship to San Francisco State University because of internment. He loves and plays both jazz and baseball with equal passion, gets into trouble for drinking, manages to get beat up by racists in town, and even enters into a risky interracial relationship with the daughter of white military sergeant Billy Burrell (the commanding officer of the camp and an aging baseball prospect in the New York Yankee farm system). While incarceration interrupts their lives and places great strains on their relationships, the gaze of the film falls on the two Nomura boys, Lane and Lyle. One of the ways Japanese Americans sought to make their lives in the camps just a little bit better was to organize baseball teams and leagues where ballplayers could play, others could watch, and all could perhaps forget for a moment that they were imprisoned behind barbed wire under the watchful gaze of armed guards.ДЄmerican PastimeВ tells this story through the experience of the Nomura family, taken from their Los Angeles neighborhood and forcefully relocated to Camp Topaz outside of Abraham, Utah. The same can be said of Japanese Americans, 120,000 of whom (both citizen and noncitizen alike) suffered race-based mass incarceration in so-called relocation camps by the United States government during World War II.Д¬ollectively and individually, Japanese AmericansвЂ™ dignified survival took many forms, including creating Japanese language poetry clubs, designing rock gardens, crafting furniture from scrap lumber, constructing ofuroВ baths, playing music, making art out of found materials, striking and protesting their imprisonment, and even just working to pass the days in the camps. Whether itвЂ™s the enslavement of Africans, the colonization and attempted genocide of Native Americans, the exploitation and abuse of workers, or any other efforts of systematic domination of a group, at a minimum people survive and resist simply out of a struggle to maintain their human dignity. If there is one thing that unifies most peoplesвЂ™ struggles to survive forms of oppression, it is the fight to maintain human dignity. Screenplay by Desmond Nakano and Tony KaydenДignity. Johnny Nakagawa, left, was the Nisei slugger often compared to Babe Ruth.ДЄmerican PastimeВ and baseball under mass incarceration

Photo: Courtesy of Nisei Baseball Research Project ( )

American pastime 2007