Acclaimed Film Tells Librarian's Heroic Story

Ever thought of a librarian as a hero?" asks the young narrator of the documentary video Dear Miss Breed . "Well, think again." A recipient of a Special Gold Jury award at the Houston Film Festival earlier this year, Dear Miss Breed is the true story of a San Diego children's librarian who reached out to her young Japanese-American patrons during their incarceration in America's World War II concentration camps.

This story of personal courage in the face of racism is especially relevant now, say educators, given the backlash experienced by Muslims and Arab-Americans following the recent terrorist attacks. "This all happened once before to people in our community," says Irene Hirano, director of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, which produced the film.

During the 1940s, Clara Estelle Breed was a children's librarian at the San Diego Public Library, where she was known as the beloved "Miss Breed" to local children, including the many Japanese-American children and teenagers who frequented the East San Diego Branch Library, where Breed worked. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were placed into concentration camps. Among the more than 120,000 individuals incarcerated without due process of law were Breed's young friends, most of whom were U.S. citizens.

Shocked and outraged, Breed helped the children by becoming a lifeline to the outside world. On the day of their departure at the San Diego train station, she distributed stamped and addressed postcards to her young friends, asking them to write to her. Breed became a sounding board for the children's thoughts, frustrations, and fears. She wrote back, often including care packages of candy, soap, and, of course, books, as well as immeasurable emotional support.

Breed kept the more than 250 letters she received, donating them to the museum shortly before her death in 1994. Her story will inspire young people today, says Claudia Sobral, the museum's assistant director of education, "because it honors an individual who had the courage to come forward and speak against the violation of civil liberties." The documentary is available on video, along with a teachers' guide. For more information, visit www.janm.org.