Reclaiming Identity

When April Gilbert compares her grandfather Herbert Hirota’s life as it’s captured in the 1940 and 1950 U.S. Census, a lot remains the same. Most of the family worked on a citrus ranch, and they lived in Azusa, California. But there’s one marked difference: Herbert and his siblings’ races shifted from “Japanese” in 1940, to “White” in 1950. Her family’s fractured story raises thorny questions about identity-what does it mean to be an American? Who gets to decide? And who is left behind?
For helping make this video possible, Atlantic Re:think and Ancestry give special thanks to:
April Gilbert, David Izu, Densho, Diana Ortiz, Eric Ortiz, Japanese American Veterans Association, Jeffrey Cornejo, Louis Hirota, Nancy Ukai, Raymond Alvarez, Richard Cahan, Rosemarie Mondragon, National Archives and Records Administration, Library of Congress, 50 Objects