Filmmaker Michael Uno, right, discusses camera positions with Jason Inouye during Bakersfield High graduation rehearsal Thursday, June 5, 2003. The school chose to recognize Japanese American former students who were imprisoned in internment camps during World War II.


Michael Uno plans to make a documentary about the history class project to research Japanese American local residents who were expelled during World War II.


Videographers capture the reunion of Akiko Tamura Mori, class of 1945 and Masako Inouye Fukuhara, class of 1944, at a reception for the nisei graduates at the Rice Bowl in Bakersfield on Thursday, June 5, 2003.


Nancy Sakamoto Nakamura (class of 1944), center, examines Bakersfield Californian articles that chronicle the efforts of Ken Hooper's history class.


Marion Uyetani Doiwchi, left, and Bob Uyetani claim for their brother Roy Uyetani, class of 1945, one of the tea bowls thrown by students in Kathy Kalson's ceramics class. The artisans offered the bowls to the Japanese American graduates.


Nearly 60 years after finishing high school, former students at Bakersfield High (then named Kern County Union High School) prepare to receive their diplomas. Posing in the school library before the ceremony are, from left, Masano Kizuka Holt, Akiko Tamura Mori, Tom Horiye, Masako Inouye Fukuhara and Nancy Sakamoto Nakamura.


Akiko Tamura Holt (class of 1945), accompanied by her husband, Earl Holt, strides onto Bakersfield High's Griffith Field.




Japanese American alumni and their family members stand with the Bakersfield High class of 2003.


After receiving her diploma from Principal David Reese, Nancy Sakamoto Nakamura, class of 1944, accepts a second certificate for her sister, Ayako Sakamoto, class of 1945.