Feature Film:
Row Don’t Drift:
An American Legacy
Sunday October 25, 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Row Don’t Drift:
An American Legacy
"Row Don’t Drift: An American Legacy" explores a pivotal moment in American history when wartime hysteria met principled resistance. When birthright citizen Yoshi Kubo and his family were forcibly evicted from their California farm under the World War II Japanese exclusion order and confined in a bleak internment camp, he feared that his land and livelihood were lost to him forever. Forced to collaborate with unlikely allies and to choose between military conscription and imprisonment as a conscientious objector, Yoshi took an unconventional stand against oppression. Through persecution and perseverance to triumph, his story has echoes that reverberate to the present day.
watch trailer
Q&A Panelists
Moderator: Vanessa Hatakeyama
Bay Area born and raised, Vanessa Hatakeyama is the Executive Director of the Japanese American Museum of San Jose (JAMsj) where she works alongside a team of dedicated board, staff, and volunteers to fulfill the Museum’s mission to “collect, preserve, and share Japanese American history, art, and culture”. A San Jose Japantown resident for over a decade, Vanessa is deeply rooted in the local community and has fostered collaborations with artists, culture bearers, and local organizations to showcase and celebrate the vibrant creativity, abundant diversity, and rich cultures that thrive in the historic San Jose Japantown neighborhood.
Director/Producer: Karina Ezitis
Karina Ezitis is a filmmaker from Merced, California. Raised in Hawai’i, Karina relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a SAG actor. Prior to marrying an agricultural engineer and relocating to the Central Valley, she performed in and directed several theatrical plays and appeared in film and television. When the pandemic struck, she decided to reinvent herself. Applying her knowledge of theatrical directing and her observations on film and television sets to developing skills as a director and cinematographer, she completed a course in filmmaking at The Art of Documentary online academy. Since then, she has been a three-time successive winner of the regional mini-documentary showcase The Big Tell, which airs on Central Valley PBS.
Director of Photography: Jason Wada
Jason Wada is an independent media producer from Fresno, California, who heroically stepped up from second unit director of photography to lead cinematographer when that became necessary during the course of filming. After earning a BA in electronic media production from Cal State Fresno, he has amassed over 15 years of experience in multimedia production, bringing a broad skill set, progressive technical background, and creative digital wizardry to all his endeavors.
Joe Akira is a first-generation Japanese American actor, filmmaker and photojournalist who lives in Santa Monica, California. After growing up as a rebellious skate rat in the South Bay, he earned a BA from UCLA in political science focusing on conflict resolution in the Middle East with a minor in film and television entrepreneurship, while simultaneously serving as a staff photographer for the Daily Bruin. More recently, he wrote, produced and directed a narrative short about the post-WWII Japanese American experience, Tales of Spring: Sandi’s Story.
Actor: Joe Akira
Family Archivist: Dan Kubo
Dan Kubo, a teacher, social activist, and history buff, lives on the family farm in Ballico, California, where his father Yoshi’s story begins. Dan and his wife Chris met at San Jose State University, where they began their lifelong journey in activism by speaking out against the Vietnam War and agitating for the creation of one of the nation’s first Asian American Studies departments. Together Dan and Chris have carefully archived and preserved Yoshi’s journals, poetry, photographs, official documents, hand-scribbled notes, mimeographed papers, and a myriad of other materials in anticipation of the day when they could share Yoshi’s story of principled resistance with the world.
Writer/Producer: Craig Colvin
Craig Colvin is a CLIO, Cannes Lions & ADDY award-winning casting director who’s cast, produced and consulted on 2500+ Film, TV and Live Event projects over the past three decades. Possessing the ability to adapt and perform a wide range of tasks across the entire production process, he consistently strives to increase productivity and efficiency. His gregarious nature and enduring love of traveling across the globe have given him experience in a diversity of cultures and lifestyles, which keeps his work real and relatable. Amongst his myriad of interests, his lifelong passion for vintage cars and the connections he’s forged in the gearhead community proved invaluable with Row Don’t Drift.
*Times, films, and guests are subject to change without notice.*
Q&A Guest and Moderator
Director: Karina Ezitis
Karina Ezitis is a filmmaker from Merced, California. Raised in Hawai’i, Karina relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a SAG actor. Prior to marrying an agricultural engineer and relocating to the Central Valley, she directed several theatrical plays. When the pandemic struck, she decided to reinvent herself. Applying her knowledge of theatrical directing and her observations on film and television sets to developing skills as a director and cinematographer, she completed a course in filmmaking at The Art of Documentary online academy. Since then, she has been a three-time successive winner of the regional mini-documentary showcase The Big Tell, which airs on Central Valley PBS, and has won filmmaking grants from the California Heartland Creative Corps, the United States-Japan Foundation, the California Civil Liberties Program, the Takahashi Charitable Foundation, and the California Arts Council. “Row Don’t Drift: An American Legacy” is her debut feature film as director.
Moderator: Janelle Wang
Janelle Wang is an anchor for NBC Bay Area News, co-anchoring the 5 p.m. newscast alongside Jessica Aguirre and the 5:30 p.m. newscast with Raj Mathai. She also reports for the station’s 6 p.m. newscast.
Since joining NBC Bay Area, Wang has earned three Emmy Awards for her coverage of the Valley Fire in Middletown, the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland and the North Bay wildfires in Wine Country. Her reporting has taken her around the globe, including to Sochi, Russia, for the Winter Olympics and to Kansas City for the San Francisco Giants’ World Series victory.
Prior to NBC Bay Area, Wang spent more than eight years at KGO-TV ABC7 in San Francisco, where she covered a wide range of stories, from the deadly San Bruno gas explosion to the steroid scandal in professional sports. She also reported extensively on the Scott Peterson murder trial, with her courtroom notes reaching readers as far as South America and Europe.