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Konrad Aderer

@konraderer.bsky.social

120 followers 210 following 92 posts

Nassau County, NY. Hapa yonsei. Filmmaker: They Took My Father Too, Resistance at Tule Lake, Enemy Alien

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · Apr 1

We wrapped an ambitious day of production for They Took My Father Too, recreating scenes from the lost cinema culture of Little Tokyo, Los Angeles.
This is the story of a father's arrest under the Alien Enemies Act, but also the erasure of a vibrant Japanese American enclave. buff.ly/qnGjEv1

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3h

Uh, do you mean this WIC? www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

MSN

www.msn.com

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 4h

Shortly before the pandemic I began my obsession with Tessaku ("Iron Fence"), the Japanese-language literary journal of Tule Lake Segregation Center...and last year I started production of film adaptation and hybrid documentary expanding on a 1944 short story from the second issue. buff.ly/LxiolpO

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 7h

Before World War II, Japanese Americans saw many Japanese films at cinemas and community venues. Denise Khor's book Transpacific Convergences reveals this transnational public sphere of cinema and ideas across the Pacific, which we recreate in They Took My Father Too.
buff.ly/19Zg0dn

Book cover: Transpacific Convergences: Race, Migration, and Japanese American Film Culture before World War II by Denise Khor

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 23h

All right mister smartypants, whadja get don witcha five hard drives plugged in all day?

Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Stop AAPI Hate @stopaapihate.org · 1d

The latest tactic in Trump's cruel anti-immigrant agenda? Depriving people of life-saving medical care.

After being interrogated by CBP in an airport for five days, Paramjit Singh — a Sikh man from India battling a brain tumor and a heart condition — was rushed to the ER for a medical emergency.

Paramjit Singh: Sikh man with brain tumour detained by US immigration

Paramjit Singh, an Indian passport holder, has lived in the US on a green card since 1994.

www.bbc.com

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 2d

Kenji Liu: "when we look at the ICE detention camps being built now, it’s not hard to draw a connection—between a presidential executive order and unchecked federal power. I think people forget that this happened to Japanese Americans—in Little Tokyo. (Los Angeles)"

Discover Nikkei @discovernikkei.bsky.social · 2d

Kristie Valdez-Guillen interviews artist Kenji Liu on his art, Los Angeles's Little Tokyo, and what he's working on now.

Art as Resistance: Kenji Liu on Little Tokyo, Memory, and Place-Based Practice

When the JANM staff reached out with the opportunity to interview Los Angeles artist Kenji C. Liu, as a lifelong Angeleno, I was excited to learn more about his Little Tokyo and El Sereno place-based art. Due to the military occupation and federal raids seizing Los Angeles at the time of this interview, we decided …

discovernikkei.org

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 2d

Talk of Asian immigration as an "invasion" dominated politics in the early 20th century. But folks eager to see Asians locked up en masse had to wait for an actual war to trigger the Alien Enemies Act. Now we have a gov't willing to reinvent words like "invasion" and "insurrection."
buff.ly/hiOOOcz

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

Nice to find you here though! Here's a post by a colleague of mine which explains about a Tessaku translation project underway now: resisters.com/2023/12/14/p...

Project to translate and republish the literary magazines of Tule Lake | RESISTERS.COM: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

resisters.com

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

Hey Jed! You posted on my 2024 birthday about Tessaku, which has been my focus since 2019. The literary journal, not the tessaku-com project which grabbed the name. That description irks me because Tessaku ran for more than a year, a significant proportion of the WW2 incarceration period.

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

I'm not even the real target audience for this but close to people who are and it's perfect 🤣

Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Frosted Poptart @toastertrollop.bsky.social · 3d

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

A clipping from my research around U.S. Japanese-language literature, which I'm excavating and reimagining as a filmmaker. Scholars of Japanese diasporas from Yuji Ichioka to Duncan Ryuken Williams have worked to free Asian American history from assimilationist biases. buff.ly/4LI028A

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

Don't tell me that.

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

Y'know, having Drumph in charge is going to make certain people loads and loads of money. And the wealthiest in the world will be like 3 of the worst possible people.

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 3d

This phrenological chart is too close to mine for comfort. #anxiety

Discover Nikkei @discovernikkei.bsky.social · 4d

This week's "My Name is Neal" is..."Phrenological foolishness (my character as indicated by the bumps on my skull)" by @Neal Yamamoto: discovernikkei.org/e...

#comic #cartoon

Journal Entry #Circa 18th - 19th Century: "Cranial Craze..."

A weekly visual journal/cartoon about an easily-annoyed fourth generation American of Japanese descent. This week, “Phrenological foolishness (my character as indicated by the bumps on my skull)” Check back every weekend for subsequent entries. Click to enlarge

discovernikkei.org

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 5d

I hold a Masters in Sociology from Brooklyn College where four adjuncts were fired and a student suspended, evidently for their pro-Palestine views. I'm glad that @psc-cuny.org is supporting their cause.
jacobin.com/2025/10/cuny...

CUNY Workers Against the New McCarthyism

The Professional Staff Congress, the faculty and staff union at the City University of New York, is organizing against GOP attacks on higher ed — and fighting what it says are the CUNY administration’...

jacobin.com

Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 5d

Our plane to Spain is in the air!

🙌🙌

Thank you so much to the countless people supporting us in every way and in particular all of the Rutgers students and faculty who have supported us every step of the way.

380 1.2K 9.6K

Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Frosted Poptart @toastertrollop.bsky.social · 6d

🗡️

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Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Buffalo Legal Observers @buffalolos.bsky.social · 6d

Our friends at Justice for Migrant Families of WNY will be in John Maggio & Neha Shastry's documentary The Act of Dreaming, premiering next Wednesday at the North Park Theatre during the Buffalo International Film Fest. Tickets here: www.buffalofilm.org/events/the-a...

The Act of Dreaming

Three recently-arrived immigrant families struggle to adjust to a new life in Buffalo, New York.

www.buffalofilm.org

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 6d

While I was in preproduction for my film They Took My Father Too, scholars joined Japanese American incarceration survivors and descendants to research Tessaku, the Japanese-language journal forged in the tumult of Tule Lake Segregation Center from 1944 to 1946. buff.ly/gW2rpD9#lite... #film

A Trip to the National Archives—On the Search for Tessaku

Police report submitted by Mary Masako Oshiro for her missing pen. Photo courtesy of author. In June 2025, I had the chance to present my research on the JACL and political lobbying at the Changing…

buff.ly

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 7d

Children's legal rights, like everything else, have a price in this administration.

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 7d

Talk of Asian immigration as an "Invasion" drove editorials and politics long before WW2. The Alien Enemy Control Program arrested over 9,000 Japanese immigrants, and no "fifth column" was ever discovered. buff.ly/hiOOOcz @denshoproject.bsky.social

A document with police photos and fingerprints of an Issei man arrested after Pearl Harbor.
The “alien enemy” personnel record of an Issei man arrested in Honolulu on February 25, 1942. Courtesy of the Kazuichi Takanishi Collection.

Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 8d

The 20+ Americans including Jasmine Ikeda have been released from custody, hope to hear more from them.

AsAmNews @asamnews.bsky.social · 9d

Jasmine Ikeda was among the activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla who were detained by the Israeli government while trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
asamnews.com/2025/10/05/j...

Japanese American detained while trying to bring aid to Gaza – AsAmNews

Japanese American Jasmine Ikeda was detained by the Israeli government while trying to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.

asamnews.com

Reposted by Konrad Aderer

Densho @denshoproject.bsky.social · 9d

Banned Books Week brings into sharp relief a truth we see in our work every day: stories are powerful. In the 2024–2025 school year alone, there were 6,870 instances of book bans — a sharp and alarming increase over the past two years, signaling a “disturbing normalization of censorship.”

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Konrad Aderer @konraderer.bsky.social · 9d

Was watching All the President's Men thinking about journalism and that in a sense I'm a journalist at heart but just a really slow one. I did do daily journalism as a job but having to "find a story" each day just killed my soul. I don't find stories, stories find me. But not every freaking day.