Film screening and discussion of “The Ito Sisters: An American Story”

Join film director Antonia Glenn and Professor Evelyn Nakano Glenn for a film screening and discussion of “The Ito Sisters: An American Story.” The film captures the stories of three Japanese-American sisters interviewed in their 80s and 90s recounting how their immigrant family struggled to make a life in America at the beginning of the century. Writer and director Antonia Glenn will share the experience of making this award-winning documentary. Professor Glenn will share her perspectives as a leading sociologist and camp survivor.  

This activity is funded by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program.

EVELYN NAKANO GLENN (Producer) is a Professor of the Graduate School and Founding Director of the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley.  Glenn’s teaching and research have centered on race, gender and class dynamics, particularly as they have played out in the family, labor force and citizenship.  Her articles have appeared in such journals as Social Problems, Signs, Feminist Studies, Social Science History, Stanford Law Review, Contemporary Sociology, and Gender and Society, as well as in many edited volumes.  Her books include Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America (Harvard University Press); Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor (Harvard University Press); Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of Japanese American Women in Domestic Service (Temple University Press); Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters (Stanford University Press); and Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency (Routledge).  Her scholarship and efforts to empower women and minorities have garnered numerous awards, including the Asian American Local Heroes Award from KQED and Union Bank, and the Nikkei of the Biennium Award for Contributions to Education from the Japanese American Citizens League.  She is a past President of the American Sociological Association.  Glenn holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a PhD from Harvard University.
 
ANTONIA GRACE GLENN (Director and Producer) is the director and producer of the award-winning documentary film, The Ito Sisters: An American Story, which has been broadcast on more than 200 PBS stations around the country.  The film has been screened at more than 30 universities, museums and other institutions around the country, including at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.  The Ito Sisters has been an Official Selection of 10 film festivals: the Berkeley Video & Film Festival (Grand Festival Award and Audience Award); the Sacramento Japanese Film Festival (Emerging Filmmaker Award); the Women’s Film Festival San Diego; the Boston Asian American Film Festival (Audience Choice Award for Feature Documentary); the Asian Pop-Up Cinema Festival in Chicago; the Japan Film Festival Los Angeles (Best Documentary Award); the Cincinnati African & Asian Diaspora Film Festival; the Our Time: Celebrating Women Film Festival in Florida; the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival; and the West Sound Film Festival in Washington (Best Documentary Award).  Her next documentary, Casting Coup, will chronicle the Miss Saigon casting scandal from 1990, when a White actor was cast in a leading Asian role in a Broadway production; the film will explore the politics of casting and issues of representation in American theatre, film and media.  As a theatre artist and arts administrator, Glenn has worked with such organizations as Idyllwild Arts Foundation, KCET public television, Cornerstone Theater Company and Watts Village Theater Company.  She holds a BA from Wellesley College, an MFA in Acting from USC and a PhD in Theatre & Drama from the University of California, San Diego.