An award winning documentarian will be in the Great Hall on Feb. 17 to screen her film “Honor and Sacrifice”, the story of Roy Matsumoto, a Japanese-American man who enlisted in the U.S. military while detained in an internment camp during World War II. 

After the 7 p.m. screening, a roundtable discussion will feature one of the producers, Lucy Ostrander, Jane Dusselier, director of the Asian American Studies Program, Neil Nakadate, Professor Emeritus of English and Grace Amemiya, an Ames resident and former internee.

“A lot of the issues that are revealed in the stories of one group, we still see today as they apply to new groups of immigrants,” Nakadate said.

The sometimes stereotypical treatment of American minorities is a theme that reoccurs in the American experience, he said.

Matsumoto’s parents and sisters were living in their family’s ancestral home in Hiroshima, Japan, when war broke out.

Matsumoto became a hero after he saved his battalion, which was surrounded by Japanese forces in the Burmese jungle. When Matsumoto was sent to postwar Japan, he found family members still alive in Hiroshima despite the devastation from the nuclear attack. 

The story is told by Roy’s daughter Karen as she discovers her father’s work in military intelligence, kept secret for 50 years. 

The film uses archival footage and family photographs to depict the Matsumoto family’s experience and the struggles Japanese-American soldiers went through during and after the war.

“Honor and Sacrifice” was recently awarded the prestigious Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians for outstanding programming in documentary film concerned with American history, as well as the History In Progress Award from the American Association for State and Local History.

American internment camps during the Second World War have been a topic of particular interest to Ostrander. Her documentary “Fumiko Hayashida: The Woman Behind the Symbol” is a portrait of Fumiko Hayashida, whose 1942 photograph has become a symbol of Japanese- American internment.

Originally designed as a short project, Ostrander transformed her creation into a full-length film featuring footage of 97-year-old Fumiko and daughter Natalie’s pilgrimage to the original Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho.

The screening and discussion is considered a Day of Remembrance Event and part of the Iowa State Lecture Series. Admission is free.