We Came Back For You

"We Came Back for You" is a film poem based on a poem by the same name by Satsuki Ina, a psychotherapist and activist who is one of the featured “heroes” in artist Taiji Terasaki's exhibition "Transcendients: Heroes at Borders" at the Japanese American National Museum. The film features Ina reciting her poem over a montage of photographs of her during and after her incarceration during World War II, footage preserved in the archives of the Japanese American National Museum, and images of Ina’s current activism, which connects the unjust treatment of Japanese Americans to today's crisis occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border, where immigrant and refugee families are being separated and indefinitely held in detention centers.

Projected onto a screen of mist, the constantly moving and changing imagery evokes the fluidity of a dream state, as the film plays on the vivid yet enigmatic nature of memory, emotions, and imagination. Employing the “found footage” technique, "We Came Back for You" is a creative collaboration between artist Taiji Terasaki, filmmakers Akira Boch, Karen Ishizuka, Evan Kodani, and Yuka Murakami, and Satsuki Ina.

"We Came Back for You" suggests that the work does not refer solely to the past, but rather highlights the need of trauma survivors to address similar injustices taking place today.