Passing Poston

During World War II, almost 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly relocated and spent the war years in one of ten internment camps located in the some of the nation’s most inhospitable and desolate places. One such camp, situated on an Indian Reservation on the Arizona desert, was the Poston Relocation Center.

Weaving personal stories and moving archival footage, PASSING POSTON tells the untold story of how Japanese internees were used by the US government to help develop a Native American reservation. It is the story of four former Poston internees-wounded individuals still searching for their identity and still questioning what their place is in America. For Ruth Okimoto, the need to confront the past brings her back to the desert of Arizona where she spent her childhood years behind barbed wire. It is a journey Ruth takes to find meaning in the inexplicable as she searches to discover the true story of how the Poston camp came into being.

Directed by award-winning journalists Joe Fox and James Nubile PASSING POSTON is a powerful and haunting story that gives voice to the internees’ alienation and dislocation.