NAMBA tells the American story of May Namba, born in 1922 to Japanese immigrants. During
WWII, 125,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated, including the Namba family. May’s
granddaughter, Miyako, narrates and guides us through her grandmother’s experiences living
at Minidoka. Miyako packs a suitcase heart-wrenchingly contemplating the most important
belongings to bring to the prison camp. She makes a mattress out of hay and lays down in a
horse stall to use as a bed, just as her grandmother did. Throughout the film May and Miyako
share this complex history—the injustice and love of country—that’s rarely discussed in
history books.
