Reckoning with Redress (RWR) is a cinematic digital history project that explores the history of the Japanese American Redress Movement, and its promises and consequences for present-day reparations efforts by other marginalized communities. This open educational resource will interweave the preservation of Japanese American history with the broader community-driven quest for learning, racial justice, and healing that is often missing from standard curricula.

‍RWR will delve into Chicago’s significant role in the Japanese American Redress Movement, particularly highlighting the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) hearings held at Northeastern Illinois University in 1981. These hearings were pivotal in the national redress efforts, as they gathered testimonies from Japanese American community members who courageously shared their experience and consequences of being wrongfully incarcerated during WWII. By focusing on these Chicago-specific events, RWR will provide a localized context that underscores the city’s contribution to the broader movement and connects to Black American reparations efforts today.

RWR builds upon the foundations laid by its predecessors, The Orange Story (2015) and Resettlement: Chicago Story (2022), which both combine an original short historically-based film with an immersive learning website loaded with primary and secondary sources curated by leading scholars and educators. Our cinematic digital history projects are community-driven at every step of creation, from ideation, research, and story development to film production, learning curation, and distribution to the public.

As the final piece in this trilogy, RWR is a culmination of over eight years of dedicated effort and innovation, and the pinnacle of Full Spectrum Education's journey in developing the most accessible and engaging model for cinematic open educational resources. By diverging from standard film and curriculum development norms, RWR will combine the best practices and standards from both fields by embracing innovative pedagogy and community based storytelling.
‍