The Film

World War II, the U.S. government detained more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent in internment camps throughout the West. One camp was different. Run by the Department of Justice, the Santa Fe Camp held 4,555 men considered the ‘worst of the worst.’ Despite their experience behind barbed wire, their story has largely been unknown — a hole in the history books for the last 60 years.

Prisoners and Patriots: The Untold Story of Japanese Internment in Santa Fe is the first documentary to fill that void. Based on 20 hours of exclusive interviews with former Santa Fe camp survivors and their families, previously classified government documents and private photographs, this film tells a story that, in many cases, fathers never told their own children after the war.

Santa Fe’s prisoners were all men — some Japanese nationals, some U.S. citizens. Many were Buddhist ministers. Some were businessmen, teachers or journalists from the West Coast, Hawaii, and Latin America whom the U.S. government feared would be able to gain large pro-Japanese followings.

Considering the youngest internees were in their 20’s, the few remaining survivors from Santa Fe are now at least in their 80’s. Prisoners and Patriots is a film that ensures their story will be preserved, passing on a remembrance of who they were and how they endured their desert detention.