Inaugural Clara Breed Civil Liberties Lecture featuring Renee Tajima-Peña

330 Park Blvd,San Diego CA 92101

17 November, 2021

Description

Filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña delivers the Inaugural Clara Breed Civil Liberties Lecture named after heroic San Diego librarian Clara Breed Independent Filmmaker and UCLA Endowed Professor Tajima-Peña is a groundbreaking artist whose Academy Award-nominated film Who Killed Vincent Chin? ignited a push for Asian American rights and changed the course of American legal history. She has dedicated her craft to amplifying Asian American and Latinx voices. Refreshments served beginning at 6:00 pm before start of event at 6:30 pm From third-generation Japanese Americans grappling with cultural identity in My America...or Honk If You Love Buddha to forced sterilizations of Mexican-born women in East Los Angeles in No Mas Bebés, Tajima-Peña has driven our conversations of inclusion past the American black and white binary. Most recently, Tajima-Peña is the producer and showrunner for the 2020 six-part PBS series Asian Americans on the Asian American experience. She is the co-founder/executive producer of the May 19 Project, a social media campaign that amplifies the legacy of interracial solidarity. ---------- Biography of Professor Tajima-Peña Visit her website for additional information More on Clara E. Breed: https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Clara%20Breed https://www.cla-net.org/page/664 https://www.janm.org/collections/clara-breed-collection ---------- This Clara Breed Lecture is part of the program series The Rebellious Miss Breed: San Diego Public Library and the Japanese American Incarceration. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. Visit calhum.org. The Rebellious Miss Breed underscores the remarkable activism of San Diego librarian Clara Breed who advocated on behalf of Japanese American children during WWII. The young library patrons, incarcerated in remote concentration camps throughout the United States, exchanged letters, packages, and books with Miss Breed. These exchanges provided significant lifelines and consolation for the thousands of San Diegans of Japanese descent imprisoned in the camps. San Diego High School senior Fusa Tsumagari wrote over 30 letters to San Diego librarian Miss Breed during her incarceration. Her letters express the grief and hopes that she had for those in the camps, her family, and Miss Breed herself. Always quick to apologize for not writing sooner, her words always kept a positive outlook during bleak times.