Mirikitani and I — Q&A with Linda Hattendorf
Besides cats, Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani likes to draw the landscape of his past: mountains, desert sand, rattlesnakes and himself — a crayon figure with his signature crimson beret and scarf — enclosed in a barbwire fence.
“It’s history you know,” he said holding the artwork up to the camera in the documentary, “The Cats of Mirikitani.” At 25, the Sacramento born artist was interned at Tule Lake for three and one-half years before renouncing his citizenship to return to Hiroshima.
At 80, he was a self-proclaimed grand master artist living on the streets of New York when Linda Hattendorf found him and pushed “record” on her camera.
Pacific Citizen: What about Mirikitani initially drew you in?
Linda Hattendorf: I met Jimmy on Jan. 1, 2001. It was a bitterly cold night, and the Korean deli on my corner had moved all their produce and flowers inside to protect them from the plunging temperature.
On the empty shelves barely protected from the cold by a thin sheet of plastic, I saw an elderly man wearing many layers of coats and gloves calmly drawing a picture of a cat. He had piles of other drawings displayed around him. I was curious, and concerned. I also like cats. On impulse, I asked if the drawing was for sale. He didn’t say much, but gave me the drawing — asking a favor in return: that I take a picture of it for him.
Like any artist Jimmy wanted his artwork documented. But I soon learned there were deeper stories behind every picture. What impressed me about Jimmy once I learned more about his past was his determination to talk about it and make it visible. What happened to him and thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II remains only minimally visible in mainstream history today. I hope my film is an extension of Jimmy’s desire to be seen.
PC: You decided to take Jimmy in.
LH: Yes, it was completely impulsive. By September 2001, I had been filming Jimmy for nine months. On the morning of Sept. 11, as I prepared to leave for work, I heard a plane roar over our building, followed by a horrible echoing boom. There was an eerie silence as everyone on the street stood shock still, staring up in disbelief. When the second tower was hit, the silence turned to chaos. Around the corner, Jimmy stood with his back turned, still drawing.
Soon the eerie silence descended again on the deserted streets. I went back to check on Jimmy, and found him still drawing, now coughing in the toxic cloud that had engulfed our neighborhood.
With a hole in the sky where the solid towers of the World Trade Center had stood, the walls between Jimmy’s life and mine no longer made sense. It seemed urgent that he come inside. When he initially politely refused, I remembered a story he had told me about Hiroshima. He had told me that when the atomic bomb was dropped, “people didn’t understand that the air was poison.” So that night, I told him, “Jimmy, I think maybe the air is poison. You need to come inside.” That got through, and he came home with me.
PC: When you first started filming you thought this was just a short film, what made you keep documenting?
LH: When I first began to document Jimmy’s life, I was shocked to find such an elderly man living on the streets. I wanted to raise awareness about his situation and that of others like him. I thought I would make a small portrait of the artist in four seasons and hoped that someone would see my movie and rescue him. But the more I learned, the more I wanted to know, and the more involved I became.
PC: What was the most difficult part about documenting such a complex character?
LH: Well, of course any two people trying to share a one-room apartment in Manhattan have their differences! Jimmy and I are both fairly strong-willed, and suddenly having a new grandfather tell me when to be home at night was not easy!
On a more important level, the most difficult thing was persuading him to accept government assistance. His deep mistrust and bitterness about the past were preventing him from getting the help he needed in the present. Understanding his past was the key to changing the future.
PC: After hearing his personal account, how have your views about internment history evolved or changed?
LH: I knew very little about internment before I met Jimmy. I knew it had happened, but had no idea of the scope of it, nor the details of daily life before, during and after.
I first heard the word Tule Lake from Jimmy. He not only cited statistics, he also painted a vivid picture of life there. He called camp a “big government mistake” and talked angrily about men who told him to sign a paper to “cut citizenship” and “go home.”
As I researched Jimmy’s past, I learned things I never knew happened in this country — the story of the renunciants is for me one of the most chilling. That native-born citizens of this country could have been persuaded under duress to sign away their citizenship makes it crystal clear that any one of us can be deemed “the enemy” when it serves the government’s purpose. Jimmy’s story is a cautionary tale that has taken on an eerie resonance in the post 9/11 world.
PC: In documenting your intersecting lives, what lessons have you learned from him?
LH: I learned so much from Jimmy, not only about the lasting trauma of war and discrimination, but about the healing power of art. After 9/11, it was hard to know what to do. Jimmy did what he always did — made art everyday. I followed his example and just kept shooting video, documenting our world daily. Art was the common language that helped the two of us bond despite our many differences, and helped me process the trauma of 9/11.
PC: Has he completely come to terms with his internment experience?
LH: I think the best answer for this is to describe how his art changed after he revisited the site of the Tule Lake camp. When I met him, he was obsessively drawing the same picture of his camp over and over: the mountain, the barracks, the locked gate, and a small figure: himself imprisoned behind the fence.
After he revisited this actual site on a pilgrimage to Tule Lake in 2002, his pictures of the camp changed. He drew the gate broken, the fence in ruins, cars and trucks passing freely on the road outside … soon the fence and gate were gone completely, only the mountain remained. And most significantly: he never put himself in the picture again.
PC: Do you still keep in touch with Jimmy? How is he doing?
LH: I visit Jimmy once a week in his new apartment. He’s doing great. He has many new fans since the film came out. He also has his own cat — they watch nature shows together, and also samurai movies.
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