Naoyuki Ikeda (left) and Toshiji Takeshima are featured in “We Said No! No!”

SAN BERNARDINO —?Brian Maeda’s award-winning documentary “We Said No! No!” will be broadcast in Southern California on KVCR (Channel 24) on Friday, Nov. 3, at 9 p.m.

“We Said No! No!” is a story of civil disobedience set against the backdrop of World War II and the controversial incarceration of thousands of “disloyal” Japanese Americans in the most notorious of all the concentration camps, Tule Lake. It was there that the Japanese Americans who refused to say “yes” to the infamous loyalty questionnaire were imprisoned and labeled the “No No Boys.”

About 10% of the populations of the War Relocation Authority camps answered “no” when asked if they would serve on combat duty wherever ordered, and if they would swear unqualified allegiance to the U.S. and forswear any form of allegiance to the emperor of Japan. The government moved these families to Tule Lake, which became a segregation center. At its peak, the population of Tule Lake grew to 18,000, of which some 5,000 recnounced their U.S. citizenship in preparation for “repatriation” to Japan. 

The film, which follows a group of dissidents deemed disloyal as they fight for their freedom, their dignity and their families in an America that had forsaken them, combines interviews with those men and their family members, archival footage and photographs, and dramatic re-enactments of incidents in the Tule Lake Segregation Center.

The film has been screened in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum and the Laemmle Royal.

Visit the website: https://wesaidnono.com/