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When Yoshi Kubo and his family are forcibly evicted from their California farm under the WWII Japanese exclusion order and confined in a bleak internment camp, he fears that his land and livelihood are lost to him forever. Forced to collaborate with unlikely allies and to choose between military conscription and imprisonment, Yoshi takes an unconventional stand against oppression. Through persecution and perseverance to triumph, his story has echoes that reverberate to the present day.
Director Biography - Karina Ezitis
Karina Ezitis is a filmmaker from Merced, California. Raised in Hawai’i in an Asian and white family, 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. In 2025, she was nominated for the WAVE Public Television Award for her mini-documentary BALLICO TAIKO. ROW DON'T DRIFT: AN AMERICAN LEGACY is her debut feature film as director.
When Yoshi Kubo and his family are forcibly evicted from their California farm under the WWII Japanese exclusion order and confined in a bleak internment camp, he fears that his land and livelihood are lost to him forever. Forced to collaborate with unlikely allies and to choose between military conscription and imprisonment, Yoshi takes an unconventional stand against oppression. Through persecution and perseverance to triumph, his story has echoes that reverberate to the present day.
Director Biography - Karina Ezitis
Karina Ezitis is a filmmaker from Merced, California. Raised in Hawai’i in an Asian and white family, 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. In 2025, she was nominated for the WAVE Public Television Award for her mini-documentary BALLICO TAIKO. ROW DON'T DRIFT: AN AMERICAN LEGACY is her debut feature film as director.