ISLAND ROOTS was commissioned by IslandWood, a leading environmental learning center located on Bainbridge Island, Washington. They have recently granted us permission to distribute the film. ISLAND ROOTS was the third in a trilogy of films we produced for them on the history of how different cultures relate to the land.  Having already produced two other films that explored the Filipino American experience (EAST OF OCCIDENTAL and HOME FROM THE EASTERN SEA) we were excited to be able to learn more about the history of Bainbridge Island's Filipino American community and its unique relationship to both the Bainbridge Island Japanese American community and Vancouver Island's First Nation's community.  It was a privilege for us to be able to have the opportunity to produce this film which included a little known but historically important community, the Bainbridge Island Indopinos, who were born soon after the Japanese American incarceration.

When the Filipino pioneers of the 1920’s and 30’s settled on Bainbridge Island, Washington they were hired by Japanese-American landowners to tend their renowned strawberry farms.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor turned this relationship upside down when the Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the Island and incarcerated during WWII. The Japanese American community left Bainbridge Island on March 30th, 1942, just a few months before the strawberry harvest. The Japanese American farmers needed stewards and their Filipino farmhands brought in the harvest, paid the taxes and saved the farms. The Filipino bachelors also introduced a new immigrant group, First Nation women from Canada, into the social mix. After the war, some of the bachelors traveled back to the Philippines and returned with brides.  Through it all the “Bayanihan spirit” where the community comes together and works for the common good, fed this community and everyone it touched.