Presentation and Documentary: Good Luck Soup: The American Experience Through Asian Eyes (2016)

For the Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi, growing up half Japanese, half Italian in a white Irish Catholic neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, was an interesting and sometimes difficult experience.  In Good Luck Soup, Hashiguchi sets out to discover how the rest of his multi-racial family made sense of their lives and their Japanese American heritage.  Surprisingly, he finds a role model in his elderly Japanese grandmother, Eva, who lived through internment during World War II but now says, “I am Japanese, but my mind is modern and US, freedom.”   

Eva moved to the Cleveland area following her family’s internment.  Though Eva and many other Japanese Americans were invited to the area, assimilating, working and living was an ongoing struggle.  These obstacles did not end with Eva and her generation.  Eva’s three children grew up in Cleveland in the 60s and 70s and also found it difficult to fit in.  When Cleveland schools began bussing students, Eva’s daughter, Beverly, found herself in the middle of a confusing and tumultuous racial struggle.   

Through interviews, personal home movies and thoughtful narration, Matthew Hashiguchi takes us on a sensitive, thoughtful journey to uncover and understand the complexities of racial and cultural identity.   

Join Cleveland native Matthew Hashiguchi, Professor of Communication Arts at Georgia Southern University, for a screening and discussion of his film.  

Download a pdf of the program guide to browse related events.