Out Of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn (DVD)

Written, produced, and directed by Nancy Kapitanoff and Sharon Yamato. After eight years as the costume designer for the Perry Como Show, Michi Nishiura Weglyn (1926-1999) gave up a successful career in show business in the mid-1960s to write the book, Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps.  Providing factual evidence of governmental misconduct in the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the award-winning book, published in 1976, was hailed as the “Bible of 20th Century Japanese Americans.” Her interest in this subject was personal. She had been an American citizen, a teenager, held in a camp. However, little has been known about the complex, private woman behind the book. Using archival photographs and film and audio recordings of Weglyn, Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn paints a portrait of her dynamic personality, which evolved from California-born farm girl to New York City sophisticate to nationally known civil rights activist.