Cameraman: Set.

Go ahead.

[clapboard clicks] Nobuko Miyamoto: So, where are we starting now?

♪ Man: This is Nobuko Miyamoto.

Nobuko: I'm Nobuko Miyamoto.

Woman: You're a performer, a writer, community activist.

Nobuko: As we're performing, we can change how people think.

You represent something much bigger than yourself.

I'm Nobuko Miyamoto.

[laughs] What else do you want to know?

♪ [cymbals crash] Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Zhao-Chen Family AAPI Voices Fund at Kartemquin.

Mike Douglas: You're responsible for bringing these two people to us, so why don't you handle their first introduction to nationwide television, John?

John Lennon: Yeah, these are two young people.

They're young singers called Chris and Joanna, and beautiful singers, and they have a story to tell.

[applause, whistling] Nobuko: Usually people know very little about Asians, and this is a song about our movement, about our people's plight in America.

Chris Iijima and Nobuko: ♪ We are the children of the migrant worker We are the offspring of the concentration camp Sons and daughters of the railroad builder who leave their stamp on America ♪ Quetzal Flores: Nobuko is an embodiment of what it means to be a master artist.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ We are the children of the Chinese waiter ♪ Tamica Washington-Miller: I continue to be totally amazed at the breadth of the work that Nobuko has been able to do in her life.

I see her as like a Renaissance woman.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Leave their stamp on America ♪ Kathy Masaoka: She is an activist in her own right.

She is expressing the activism and values through her art.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Sing a song for ourselves What have we got to lose?

Sing a song for ourselves We got the right to choose ♪ Nobuko: The arts are sort of like a pyramid, where Hollywood and Broadway, that's on the top.

And somebody once told me, we need to tip this pyramid over, because it's just as important what we're doing in the community as what Hollywood is saying.

[dong] Okay.

[groans] All right, so... Actually, this is the first recording of "We Are the Children" that was recorded by this Black musician, Will Crittenden.

And few people have-- I have a few copies of this, but-- and this is the original insert in A Grain of Sand album.

I didn't start collecting these materials.

My mother started collecting these early materials.

Luckily, she saved a lot of the things.

And this is me, this is my first, you know, costume that my mother made me, and I was about 4 years old here.

At that time, I was called JoJo.

Nobody called me Joanne even, I was Jojo, and nobody knew that Nobuko was my real name.

And it was the beginning of my journey as a dancer.

[laughs] Presenting oneself on a stage is-- is a very powerful action.

It may be one of the few places that a person feels control, as much control as you're going to have over your own body.

[film reel spinning] My father loved classical music.

He had a deep understanding of music.

My mother, she was a sewer, she was artistic.

I was about 4.

I found my father's favorite records.

And I would put them on the record player and dance.

It was a spectacle that really took me outside of my body.

Dan Kwong: Nobuko has said this many times, that from very early in her childhood, she found refuge in dance.

That dance was this place where she could feel free, where she could be herself.

Nobuko: In this dance school in East LA, in Loyola Heights, we were all dancing together.

I felt not alone when I danced.

This was a place where I had a sense of freedom and expression.

It gave me a sense that there was a possibility that I could do this too as a child of color.

[Japanese music] Nisei Week was one of the first places that I performed.

That was my first taste of, "Wow, Japanese Americans have all kinds of different crazy things that they can do."

Some of them would play shamisen and sing classical songs.

So, I was getting a sort of a taste of this range of culture around me, but me and my cousin, our ears were like, we loved Western music.

But we sort of thought this was old-fashioned and really, ugh.

I was pulled out of school.

I went to a Hollywood professional school.

When other kids were playing and riding their bicycles, I was inside that house.

I was practicing, practicing my pirouettes, seeing how high I could jump.

We were striving for excellence.

My goal was to raise up-- raise myself up from this community and go beyond the boundaries of the community.

You know, I was not a rebel at the time at all.

I was trying to-- I was trying to make it, not only for myself, but for my mom and dad, who'd never had a chance to do that.

[gong] Man: Now, theatricals for entertainment.

Tonight, play written by a member of Royal Palace as surprise for King, Chinese version of famous American book.

All: ♪ Small house, how come, come,Thomas?

Small house, how come... ♪ Nobuko: The first film I did was The King and I. I was 15, 16 years old.

[dramatic music] I quickly moved, and I got another job working for Jack Cole at 16 years old.

Jack Cole: ♪ And every day more Les girls, les girls Les girls ♪ Nobuko: I'd seen West Side Story on Broadway, and I went, "Oh, my God, this is something I really want to do."

So I went to the audition, and I got the job.

♪ All: ♪ Mambo!

♪ Nobuko: When you talk about rigor, I was dancing with the best of the best.

♪ It was an experience for a young person.

♪ Then I also learned in West Side Story of my fear.

Women: ♪ You're modest and pure, polite and refined ♪ Natalie Wood: ♪ La, la, la ♪ Women: ♪ Well-bred and mature ♪ Nobuko: The minute they put me in the studio, that wild little girl came out.

Wood: ♪ ...in that mirror there ♪ Women: ♪ What mirror, where?

Wood: ♪ Who can that attractive girl be?

♪ Nobuko: I couldn't sing by myself.

Where is this coming from?

[film reel spinning] I was 2 years old when Pearl Harbor happened.

Reporter: When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our West Coast became a potential combat zone.

Living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens.

[bell tolling] Nobuko: I don't really remember the chaos, but there were curfews first, and the signs went up.

It was a few months later that we were moved to Santa Anita racetrack.

I remember the dirtiness and the dustiness and the smell.

It was windy, and we had to sleep in a horse stall.

Here we were in a place, just thousands of people in this racetrack with barracks.

[baby crying] And we were there for several months.

My father was trying to figure out, "What are we going to do now?

We can't be just stuck here forever."

About 300 men, besides my father, volunteered to go to Montana.

And so, me and my mother were on this train to Montana to harvest sugar beets.

Being uprooted like this was a defining thing for a child.

Just feeling rootless, homeless in a way, not having friends that you have grown up with or family that you see all the time.

Even though I had no words for it at the time, a child could feel it.

Rev.

Masao Kodani: Kemp overnight said, "Anything Japanese is suspect."

Any kind of thing that connected you to all the traditional Japanese things made you a suspect.

And so, the split came where half the Japanese community says, "You can't do that anymore.

You have to be more American."

[film reel spinning] ♪ Rita Moreno: ♪ Life can be bright in America ♪ Men: ♪ If you can fight in America ♪ Women: ♪ Life is all right in America ♪ Men: ♪ If you're all white in America ♪ [all exclaiming] Nobuko: As Asian-American dancers and people in show business, the jobs are really few.

We took these jobs knowing that sometimes we're not going to be represented well.

Woman: I am happy to be both Chinese and American.

Man: You are like the Chinese dish the Americans invented.

What do they call it?

Man 2: Chop suey.

Man: That is it.

Everything is in it.

All mixed up.

Woman: I like that.

Singer: ♪ Chop suey, chop suey ♪ Nobuko: I auditioned as a dancer for a musical on Broadway, Flower Drum Song.

This was a story about Chinatown in San Francisco, all-Asian cast.

♪ Singer: ♪ Chop suey ♪ Cast: ♪ Chop suey ♪ Nobuko: I was on stage, and we were singing this song, "Chop Suey."

Singer: ♪ Men work late in laboratories ♪ Nobuko: We're singing, ♪ Chop suey, chop suey ♪ I'm looking out at this audience, and I'm wondering, "Why am I feeling uncomfortable?"

They're looking at us in a certain way.

We were chop suey.

We were their chop suey, Chinese food for white people.

That's who we were up there.

They didn't know who we really were.

We were there for their entertainment, and they were using our bodies as a sort of an exotic touch.

Tamica: Racism is a thing.

I don't know if it's ever not going to be here.

I hate to say this.

I cannot imagine the things that Nobuko experienced.

Nobuko: When everybody else went on to do the show, I just dropped out after a year.

♪ Quetzal: Nobuko was rigorous and excellent, and in the spaces that can be looked at as successful.

And, somehow, something was missing.

[applause] ♪ Nobuko: I got a chance to sing in a nightclub in Seattle.

This was a chance to really get on my own two feet and pick a song that I wanted to sing and sing it.

♪ The look of love is in your eyes The look in your smile can't disguise The look of love It seems so much more than just words could ever say And what my heart has felt when it takes my breath away I can hardly wait to hold you, feel my arms around you How long I have waited, waited just to love you, now that I have found you?

♪ At the same time, I was learning to sing, younger people were coming into the club.

And some of those younger people were demonstrating against the Vietnam War.

All of these memories and stories started coming up for me.

This was the third war against people that looked like us.

My brother was 20.

He was going to be drafted.

What am I doing to help that matters?

And what do I do?

Why am I singing in this nightclub?

♪ I love you so ♪ [applause] ♪ All: We are the people!

Man: We are the people!

All: We are the people!

Nobuko: Antonello Branca was making a film about the Black Panthers and asked me if I wanted to help.

Man: I lived in a ghetto all of my life until I was 23 years old.

The only thing that white cats understood was to beat you on your head until you understood that they were authority.

Nobuko: So that thrusts me into the middle of the Black Panther Party and creating a voice for change for Black Americans.

♪ Man: Now it's time to see through that trick bag, folks, the racism.

Man 2: They can no longer intimidate the people of the third world.

Nobuko: That really opened up another whole world to me.

They were breaking down oppression.

They were breaking down what they wanted to do in the community.

♪ I got exposed to Elaine Brown, who is a singer and writer of songs, and I'm going, like, "Whoa, that's amazing."

Woman, in Italian: Otto.

Brown: ♪ Your time will come when your voice could be heard in a noonday sun Have you waited so long till your unheard song has stripped away your very soul?

Well, then, we need it, my friend That the silence can't end We'll just have to get guns and be men ♪ Nobuko: Masai Hewitt began talking about Japanese Americans in camp, and that could happen to Black Americans too.

I felt suddenly like, "Oh, maybe I am part of this."

[traffic sounds] We were filming this takeover at the Young Lords church.

In this chaotic gathering of Black and Puerto Rican community folks that were in this church, somebody taps me on the shoulder.

Here's this little Asian woman, Japanese-American.

This was Yuri Kochiyama.

She started talking about Japanese-American activists in New York City and invited me to come to a meeting of Asian Americans for Action.

We went together to this meeting, and there was Chris Iijima, and his parents were there, and Yuri Kochiyama and some of her children as well.

That was the beginning of my life in the Asian-American movement.

♪ I looked in the mirror And I saw me ♪ It was the first time I was exposed to activists who were Asian-American.

♪ And I didn't want to be any other way ♪ Kathy: Imagine all these young people coming back to the community.

We had just been sort of-- you know, realized that we're Asian Americans.

Nobuko: ♪ And I saw you And it was the first time I knew who we really are ♪ Rocky Chin: Everybody was starting to think about how they wanted to see themselves too.

Nobuko: ♪ And we walked, feeling the ground we'd someday own, not alone ♪ Rocky: I remember the first conversations with Nobuko were more about culture.

♪ We didn't have our own music, we didn't have our own songs.

There was something missing.

Nobuko: A lot of the attention was on, how do we make a statement as Asian Americans about the Vietnam War?

They were going to have a conference to speak to our elders in the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League.

After we ate dinner and things calmed down, Chris brings out his guitar.

And I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know he played the guitar."

He didn't know I sang.

The next day at this program that we were presenting, we sang this song.

[acoustic guitar plays softly] And it was this moment of light.

We saw the power of the music and that we wanted to use that power.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ We are the children of the migrant worker We are the offspring of the concentration camp Sons and daughters of the railroad builder leave their stamp on America ♪ Arlan Huang: They started to sing songs I had never heard before.

They were singing about us, Asian Americans, in relationship to third world, to anti-imperialism, to identity.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ We are the offspring of the Japanese gardener, leave their... ♪ Elizabeth Miu Lan Young: This amazing feeling of people who looked like me, who understood what it was that I was trying to find out about myself.

Nobuko: Chris sometimes played the conga drums.

Charlie sometimes played the bass.

And in 1970, we did our first tour.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Hey!

Watching war movies with the next-door neighbor Secretly rooting for the other side ♪ Nobuko: We were able to sing for the activist community, the Asian-American movement.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Sing a song for ourselves What have we got to lose?

Sing a song for ourselves We got the right to choose We got the right to choose ♪ Nobuko: So, we were about two years into our career as Chris and Jo, and I get a phone call.

The voice says, "Oh, this is Yoko, and I want to know if..." blah, blah, blah, and she starts going... And I'm going, "Yoko?"

And she said, "Oh, yes, John and Yoko."

[theme music, applause] John Lennon: Welcome to The Mike Douglas Show.

This is John Lennon.

Yoko Ono: And Yoko Ono.

Lennon: We're Mike's co-hosts this week.

[cheering] Mike Douglas: You're responsible for bringing these two people to us, so why don't you handle their first introduction to nationwide television, John?

John Lennon: Yeah, they're young singers called Chris and Joanna, and beautiful singers, and they have a story to tell.

They're gonna come on now and do it.

Here they are.

[applause] Douglas: You call yourselves movement singers.

Chris: Yeah.

Douglas: Tell us about that.

I mean, what is it?

Nobuko: Most of the time, we don't sing in places like this.

We sing on street corners.

Douglas: Coffee shops?

Nobuko: No, street corners, Chris: Anywhere.

Beaches... Nobuko: [laughs] Beaches, or anywhere that people-- churches, schools.

Lennon: You know, you don't-- I mean, coming from abroad, you don't even know that there's a lot of Japanese people here.

There's so many Chinese, there's so many different races here, you forget.

Douglas: Did you grow up in the Chinatown community?

Chris: No, I mean, I grew up in Manhattan, but, uh-- [Lennon laughs] Chris: I spent a-- you know, it's-- Douglas: Are you in-- Nobuko: LA.

Douglas: In LA.

Nobuko: Here we are in front of all these lights, and in the middle of "We the Children," just after we sing, the director comes up and says, "No, no, no, excuse me, what else do you have to sing?

The housewives of the Midwest might think this line, 'Watching war movies with the next-door neighbor,' is subversive.

Can't you just fudge the words a bit?"

Out of nowhere, I just feel this rage building up in my body, and I explode.

"You!

You put us in concentration camps, and you're saying we can't sing this song?"

And I just turn around and walk away like I was going to walk home.

And before I hit the door of the studio, the director's running after me, and he said, "No, no, no, no, it's okay, you can sing anything you want."

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Watching war movies with the next-door neighbor, secretly rooting for the other side ♪ Nobuko: It was a compromising situation, and we didn't want to compromise.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Sing a song for ourselves What have we got to lose?

♪ Nobuko: We saw that music was just this way of creating relationships, both political and personal level, in different communities across the U.S. And it really pushed us again to up our game.

This is a song that we usually sing to introduce ourselves to the Latin community, and what it is, is kind of like the "We Are the Children," but in Spanish.

We sing the same language, because we're working for the same things.

The language of liberty, the lyrics of love, songs of the people, music of the people.

♪ Looking at the music now, at that time, it had so much meaning for us.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ Nosotros somos asiáticos Y nos gusta cantar para gente ♪ Nobuko: It was really about the bigger, oppressive silence that had been placed on our people since we'd been in this country.

Young Nobuko: Our music is like a reflection of what's going on in the movement.

We need to unite with all nationalities and all progressive peoples to make the kind of changes that we're talking about here.

Chris and Nobuko: ♪ La música del pueblo ♪ Quetzal: We often hear like, "Oh, the soundtrack of the movement," right?

But we don't often hear how the artist was organizer as well, generating community through their practice and creating the conditions so that people can feel belonging.

That's an essential piece of fighting for justice.

♪ Kathy: All the songs, everything was like really speaking to what we felt, what we were trying to do.

The heart and the emotions, they expressed it even if we couldn't ourselves.

Martha Gonzalez: Songs are ways of theorizing.

Lyrics are a songwriter's way of theorizing about life, about our struggles, and in that way, they're like archives.

[acoustic guitar plays softly] Nobuko: Asian Americans really didn't have any songs that would be part of their memory.

But we had nothing like that in our culture that expressed us, especially in the American-- in the American canon.

It was a small studio, a 16mm studio in New York City.

It was me and Chris, Charlie Chin and Attila Ayubi.

Two and a half days, we did the whole album.

If the album had not been made, I don't think this music would have been remembered.

It would be sort of lost in the collective memory.

So, that's the importance of A Grain of Sand.

After three years of touring, we had explored what this music could do, and it was time to move on, because I was pregnant.

Kamau was born, my son.

Very few people have really asked me questions about it.

And I think that was a defining moment of who I was to become.

Not just being a mother, but when Kamau's father got killed 10 weeks after Kamau was born...

I didn't really have time to grieve, because I had this little baby, 10 weeks old.

I had to figure out how to be a mother.

Knowing or thinking that this child would someday be able to walk with his father, learn from his father-- how was I going to replace that?

It stays with you.

And it motivates you too, because I won't stop.

I won't stop.

♪ ♪ Sleepy child, you grow up fast I'd like to give you words to last Not every wrong is righted Some things go undecided The world at times will seem to you vast, but all of this will pass ♪ I didn't want Kamau to have a chaotic life.

I felt I needed to root myself.

I went back to Los Angeles, and I was trying to think, "What do I want to do?"

I had to figure out how to be a mother and how I was going to do my work.

So, I don't know who brought me to the Senshin Buddhist temple, but someone took me there.

Rev.

Moss: She walked in and said, "Hi, my name is Nobuko," and she told me what she did and that she was in performing arts, and that she was back in LA and wanted to... just find a place where she could start up again.

So, you know, that's why I gave her the space, because I said, you can't afford renting a space.

Young Nobuko: And one, and two, and lift, lift to the back.

Nobuko: Reverend Moss stepped up and said, "Here's the key to the temple.

You can use the social hall to teach dance."

Young Nobuko: Lift the chest, flex.

Nobuko: That was, I think in his mind, a way of sort of helping me support myself.

And also to allow me to make art in the community.

Young Nobuko: And use the shoulders now.

One, arch the back.

Two.

Nobuko: Being at Senshin, it was a safe space but also a way of life.

Being a single mother and really raising Kamau on the floor of Senshin Temple... that was his second home.

I was seeing a path forward now.

I wanted to, in a way, demystify the process of art making.

How do you bring equal access?

How do we get our stories out of there to serve the community and to bring art as a natural part of our community experience?

[applause] Man: When people ask you about the name Great Leap, is there a story behind it?

Nobuko: Great Leap is an Asian-American performing arts organization created to present and create new works about and for Asian-Americans.

♪ I wanted to work within the community.

I wanted to bring the ideas of the community, the history, the struggles, and the dreams of our community onto the stage, into the music.

My technique is using a lot of movement, because I believe that our bodies carry the memory.

You have to start from something really more basic, more fun, more free.

And then you get people relaxed, and they are willing to share and dig deeper within themselves to find stories that maybe they never even thought they had.

Kathy: I don't think many people really understood the significance of the work that she did at that time.

The work is really every day, right?

It's like talking to people, you know, organizing meetings.

So, Nobuko was doing the programs that she did, reminding us of that connection that we all felt and knew from the late '60s, early '70s.

Tamica: One of the biggest challenges that we have in Los Angeles specifically, we see art everywhere.

We see it everywhere in an entertaining space.

And we don't necessarily see it as something that is for all of us all the time.

Nobuko: We were sort of outsiders with the intention of creating an alternative to show business.

Just consider that you can always be seen.

Woman: I think I'm mocking Loni.

"I'm not seen."

Nobuko: No, no.

You know what?

When you come here, you need to focus.

Focus on that little black thing out there, and when you talk, you talk to that black thing over there.

All right?

Dan: It's 180 degrees from where she started, performing on Broadway, where you're working with elite dancers, elite choreographers.

And then she decides that she wants to work with regular people.

Nobuko: Sometimes you will take the lead in making the circle, and sometimes you will yield and follow.

But we have to think as one group, one body.

Alison De La Cruz: She was literally bringing movement-based work into artistic practice work.

Among some of the LA theater people, that was not always something that people cared about.

I think there was this moment of, like, "Ah, it's just cheesy multicultural stuff."

But her work has always been more than that.

Nobuko: We're not getting these ideas on the big screen.

We're not getting these ideas in albums that we hear right now.

So, I'm very committed to live theater and what it does and the sort of community, the instant community that live theater creates.

Tarabu Betserai Kirkland: I met Nobuko for the first time in 1982.

I wrote the book and the music for this play called Jukebox.

It was a story about a Black man and Japanese woman who owned this diner in this multi-ethnic community in Oakland, and they were being forced out through gentrification.

I had asked Nobuko a few times before that if she would be interested in being in the play.

Nobuko: At first, I didn't want to do the musical, because it was, you know, "I'm busy.

I've got my own projects and stuff."

And it was going to be done in Oakland.

I have a kid.

You know, it's complicated.

And then I saw how Tarabu worked.

His skill, his insight, writing the music, writing the script, I just had never met anybody like him.

He asked me to be part of the musical.

I did go up to Oakland, and he asked me if I wanted to go to do some tai chi.

We went to Lake Merritt.

The moon was out, the lake was shimmering.

We started doing tai chi.

He was showing me some of the forms, you know, and I'm going, "Wow, this feels good."

I-- Just the way he moved-- it was crazy-- but just the way he moved, just struck me, you know.

"Wow, he's really beautiful."

And... and that was sort of it.

[laughs] Tarabu: It was like the last rehearsal, and we had talked about our families coming to the performance that following weekend.

And so, she said, "You know, everybody's going to be there that weekend.

We should just get married that weekend."

Nobuko: We didn't get married on the stage, but we got married the next day, after the show closed.

And so, we're a good team.

He's a special guy.

[laughs] He is my better half.

[laughs] ♪ Remember when he fell off the stage?

Woman: How old was he?

Kamau: Oh, when I fell off the stage, I had a blindfold on.

I was walking around on the stage.

Nobuko: Well, we were all-- Woman: It's their own fault.

Kamau: So good to see you.

Woman: Yeah, same here, Kamau.

Oh, my God.

Nobuko: Come and say hi.

Come and say hi to the ladies.

Hi.

Woman: Hi there.

Nobuko: This is my son, Kamau.

Women: Wow!

[Nobuko laughs] Nobuko: Remember when you used to carry him out?

This is where I taught many, many, many, many dance classes.

Kamau: Many performances were prepared here.

Nobuko: Yeah.

[tapping drums] It looks so much more organized now.

Rev.

Moss: It is.

It is.

Nobuko: Everything is so... [laughs] Chanto, chanto.

Rev.

Moss: That's why they don't play as well as we do.

Nobuko: They don't play as well.

It doesn't have as much soul.

[both laugh] The joy and advantage of being a community artist is that when you get an idea, you just do it.

[woman sings in Japanese] So, in the early '80s, Reverend Moss came forward and asked me, "Well, could you write a song for Obon?"

Obon is one of these moments in the Japanese community that people of all generations come together.

Rev.

Moss: Obon is a uniquely Japanese Buddhist activity.

And it is about remembering the dead, and your death, ultimately.

The Japanese did what the Zapotecs in Mexico did with the Day of the Dead.

They connected death with joy.

And the degree to which you look at death is the degree to which you come alive.

And your ancestors helped you do that.

Nobuko: There had never been a song in English about Obon.

This was a way of my learning about Japanese tradition, which I wasn't really brought up in.

And then also artistically to begin to feel more freedom about creating in this circle form.

Rev.

Moss: In this area, dancing-wise anyway, maybe 800 to 900 would fit.

That's not including the people who would be, you know, watching.

Nobuko: How's the circle going to be?

Is it going to be oval or is it going to be...

It came about by my absorbing or being a medium for other people.

Moss fed to me all this different kind of Indian music and Buddhist music and folk music, and eventually, it just came to me how it should sound.

♪ [all chanting] Something magical happens in that circle.

I think that's the magnet that keeps people coming to Obon.

They want that moment.

They can just be themselves and just feel connected to their community, be connected to their own identity, their own history.

[Japanese music] [man calling out in Japanese] ♪ Sunset sky turning indigo Moon and stars begin their evening dance Circle in the sky Voice of wind Rhythm of trees You can feel it if you dance, just dance ♪ The community has created a system to sustain this tradition.

This tradition was also done in camp.

I now look at it and say, "Well, that was an act of resistance."

When it was against the laws of the concentration camps, people came together to dance in a circle in the dust, behind barbed wire.

♪ Gathering of joy Joy in remembering the past And embracing the sorrow Close your eyes Let it go From your kokoro, just dance ♪ [singers exclaim in Japanese] So, I had no idea that writing Obon songs would turn into a big deal for me, you know.

Writing these songs led me to other partnerships.

Alison: Okay, hello, everybody, how you doing?

Yes, welcome, welcome.

What's up, Crenshaw Remembers?

We are FandangObon, a collection of Los Angeles artists.

We are so excited today to share with you dances and movement, and we want to invite you to come back into your body and join us in this circle.

♪ Nobuko: People talk about solidarity.

People talk about unity.

But how do you feel it?

Quetzal: Nobuko came to a fandango workshop, saw the circle, and was like, "Oh, this is like Obon."

Martha: We're kind of talking to her about fandango and how it's intergenerational.

It's native to the state of Veracruz.

Nobuko: The form looked very similar to me.

I said, "You know, I wonder what would happen if we combined fandango with Obon?"

♪ Martha: At first, we were gonna just fuse, and Reverend Kodani was like, "No, no, no.

Each culture has their thing, because you have to make sure nothing gets lost."

♪ [man singing in Spanish] Quetzal: What I started seeing in that space was all these people from the movement back in the day, all these Japanese-American folks that my parents used to kick it with.

So exciting, because it was like full circle for me.

[woman vocalizing] We've never had a process to heal.

We've never just sat back and really collectively engaged in healing practices.

Martha: Amid the struggle, we have to find moments of rupture and beauty and joy.

Quetzal: For me, FandangObon is an offering of that healing space.

Nobuko: It's like a big hug.

[laughs] You know, like, how can I express my love for people?

Dance-- dance with them!

[laughs] ♪ ♪ FandangObon FandangObon ♪ ♪ Nobuko, with record: ♪ Free the land You've got to free the land Father, mother, sister, and brother Father, mother, sister, and brother Now, father, mother, sister, and brother And father ♪ [Nobuko laughs] Kamau: So this album and the song "Free the Land"?

Nobuko: We did it just before you were born.

A few months before you were born, this album was made.

Chris and I played, and I remember taking you to New York with me, and you were still crawling, and-- We were singing, and you were crawling up the aisle, and, you know, just being at home in the music, you know.

Kamau: Yeah, yeah.

Nobuko: That's kind of the way you were raised.

I'd drag you around everywhere.

We sang it a lot.

And so, when we went to the studio, I think we did it in one take.

Kamau: It's fun watching you [laughs] singing it right now.

Nobuko: 50 years later.

Kamau: You are so...

It's like it's yesterday.

You know?

It's like no time between that moment and now, in a way, when I see you.

Nobuko: It was a joyful moment.

Kamau: Yeah.

You just light up when you start singing this song.

[Nobuko laughs] It's amazing.

Tarabu: Ready?

Nobuko: Bye.

Tarabu: I see you.

Nobuko: Okay.

[general chatter] Dan: I had this interesting thought about Nobuko today, which is that, through all of these decades, she's done all this work in community and building community and being the glue, being the magnet that brings people together.

And it feels like she's completed the circle.

And the community has been built.

And it is there to honor her.

♪ Nobuko: ♪ We are the children of the migrant worker We are the offspring of the concentration camp Sons and daughters of the railroad builder who leave their stamp on America We are the children of the Chinese waiter born and raised in the laundry rooms We are the offspring of the Japanese gardener who leave their stamp on America ♪ [piano plays softly] Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it, sing your song, sing it Sing a song for yourselves What have you got to lose?

We've got to sing a song for ourselves We've got the right to choose We've got the right to choose ♪ I have the privilege of having a skill to use.

This freedom, this liberation to be able to do this, make mistakes, try again, it has fed me, it has motivated me.

That's been a blessing to have that.

So, I've been trying to use it.

♪ Yes, we leave our stamp on America We leave our stamp on America America Sing your song Sing it Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it We've got a song to sing Sing your song, sing it Sing Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it We've got a song to sing Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it We've got a song to sing Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it Sing your song, sing it We've got a song to sing We've got a song to sing [applause] Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Zhao-Chen Family AAPI Voices Fund at Kartemquin.