A short documentary that looks at the unique life of spirited 92-year-old June Aochi Berk— who goes from growing up in prewar Little Tokyo to surviving in a horse stall at Santa Anita Park and a barrack at the Rohwer concentration camp, to being crowned Nisei Week Queen, is set to premiere at the Japanese American National Museum’s Democracy Center, 100 N. Central Ave. in Little Tokyo, on Sunday, Oct. 5, at 2 p.m.
“Misadventures of a Nisei Week Queen,” narrated by actor Amy Hill, follows the many lives of this longtime community activist and volunteer, who looks at her past through the eyes of a Nisei survivor. Berk and her best friend, actor Takayo Fischer, will be on hand to talk about both the turbulent and fun times they shared.
Directed by JANM’s media arts manager Evan Kodani and produced by filmmaker Sharon Yamato, the short documentary traces Berk’s life from prewar Little Tokyo — where as a child she began to learn dancing from the legendary Madame Fujima Kansuma. It then features a close-up look at Santa Anita Park, the largest and longest-running assembly center where 18,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were forcibly detained for several months in 1942.
June Aochi Berk in the Santa Anita horse stall where she and her family were held when she was a child.
Berk takes viewers on a tour of the actual horse stall that her family once lived, which still boards horses at the racetrack today, as well as the assembly center’s shower room, now a paddock area where horses are taken before their races.
Berk also talks about her incarceration at the Rohwer concentration camp in Arkansas, before being relocated to Denver, where her family ran a manju shop, Mikawaya. After graduating from high school, Berk would get a job with lawyer Min Yasui, one of the handful of people who protested the wartime incarceration.
Following her return to Los Angeles, Berk tells about becoming Nisei Week Queen in 1954 in a highly contested pageant that she characterizes with typical humor. After raising a family, she spent her later years volunteering for a host of Japanese American community organizations, most notably JANM, Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, and Little Tokyo Historical Society, among many others. She was awarded the Nisei Week Pioneer Spirit Award in 2024.
Many of her fellow JANM volunteers, now in their 90s, will be on hand to answer questions from their unique first-hand perspective as camp survivors. Most notably, Hal Keimi, also imprisoned at Santa Anita, will be there to answer audience questions.
A short reception will follow the screening, and DVDs will be available for sale from JANM’s Museum Store. Tickets are free for members, $5 for non-members, and available at the JANM website: https://www.janm.org/events/2025-10-05/misadventures-nisei-week-queen-film-screening
Funding was provided by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Foundation.
For more information, contact producer Sharon Yamato at sharony360@gmail.com.
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