The ethnic studies department, College of Liberal Arts and the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion will host a screening of “Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust,” a documentary directed by filmmaker Ann Kaneko. There will also be a panel discussion on Feb. 22 from 6 – 8 p.m. in the Advanced Technology Lab 007-02, according to a post on the Cal Poly ethnic studies website page.
Kaneko, an Emmy award-winning documentarian, wanted to reveal the true story behind a main source of Los Angeles’s water as well as the intersection between the groups of people on the land during the lake’s initial draining.
She was inspired to make the film after her experience in a research group that visited the Manzanar Concentration Camp. She did not want to make another movie about the camp, for she said there are already many great films about the internment camp. Instead, she wanted to focus on the land.
“We all need to learn about where our water comes from. I think that water is a resource that is very precious,” Kaneko said.
The panel also features Noah Williams, the Water Program Coordinator for the Big Pine Paiute Tribe and vice-chair for the Tribal Advisory Committee for the California Environmental Protection Agency, and Hana Maruyama, University of Connecticut assistant professor in history and Asian and Asian American Studies.
The award-winning documentary delves into the environmental and human impacts of the Owens Lake drainage, according to Kaneko.
Kaneko says that the Indigenous people who lived in the Payahuunadü Valley, now called the Owens River Valley, were uprooted from their land due to the city’s desire for water from the lake.
“I don’t think people understand how they were forced from one place to the other to colonize the land,” Kaneko said.
The film also tells the stories of the Japanese-Americans incarcerated at the Manzanar Concentration Camp. One of the factors that inspired Kaneko to make this film is the fact that her parents were taken to a Japanese Internment Camp during World War II.
The ranchers who previously inhabited the land are also included in the film, as they were also impacted by Los Angeles’s ownership of the land.
“It [the history of the land] is a great opportunity to look at these histories of colonization and racism and environmental justice,” she said.
The activists featured in the film are all women, which Kaneko felt was important in preserving narratives and experiences.
“It shows how women are involved in sort of taking care of these histories and this connection to water,” she said.
Ethnic studies professor Grace Yeh, one of the organizers of the screening and panel, is looking forward to the panel because she said panelists will educate guests on the overlap between control over environmental resources and racism.
“The panelists, who are storytellers, researchers and on-the-ground advocates, will provide unique perspectives that I think will open the eyes of students and community members to how something as fundamental as water has been at the heart of how communities, especially communities of color, come to be defined,” Yeh said in an email.
Kaneko encourages students and faculty to attend the screening and the panel, hoping they will learn and connect to the film.
“Native Americans say water is life and that’s true,” Kaneko said. “I think in their vision of the world, I think many of us can relate to the idea that water isn’t a resource. It’s a life force.”