{"id":6855,"date":"2018-12-06T07:44:22","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T12:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=6855"},"modified":"2018-12-06T09:02:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T14:02:02","slug":"a-professors-journey-to-connect-with-his-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2018\/12\/06\/a-professors-journey-to-connect-with-his-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A Professor\u2019s Journey to Connect With His Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Matthew Hashiguchi has a complicated relationship with his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Yet he treasures growing up as a multiracial Asian-American in a neighborhood of Irish Catholics and Italian-Americans. \u201cI live in Georgia but Cleveland will always be my home,\u201d he said. \u201cI am grateful that I had the experiences that I had. I don\u2019t think that I would be who I am without those struggles or that experience of being a minority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Personal Look at Being Multicultural<\/h2>\n

Hashiguchi, the son of a Japanese-American father and Italian- American mother, is a documentary filmmaker and assistant professor in Georgia Southern University\u2019s multimedia film and production department. He has produced multiple short films and one feature length. In the highly regarded documentary, \u201cGood Luck Soup,\u201d he explored how his parents and other family members grappled with their multiracial and multicultural identities in a neighborhood where they were reminded that they were different. \u201cGood Luck Soup\u201d is also the story of Hashiguchi\u2019s grandmother and her World War II experience. At age 16, she was among the many Japanese Americans in the United States who were forced from their homes and relocated to internment camps. The film examined the challenges she faced in<\/p>\n

rebuilding her life and the personal struggles of her family members to assimilate in Cleveland while preserving their Japanese heritage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people watching the film were able to experience my grandmother in the way that I experienced her,\u201d the filmmaker said. \u201cIt\u2019s really surprising and kind of great to have people say, \u2018I love your grandmother,\u2019 and to see who she is. It\u2019s great to have people appreciate her in the way that I also appreciate her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Luck Soup,\u201d self-funded in part, took six years for Hashiguchi to complete. He secured additional funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Japanese American Citizens League and the Center for Asian American Media. His film has been featured at several film festivals and it premiered nationwide on PBS World Channel\u2019s \u201cAmerica ReFramed\u201d television series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a huge feat for any filmmaker,\u201d Hashiguchi said. \u201cWhen I start something, I don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going to end up. You make these films because you have something to say, because something is important to you and you never expect people to say, \u2018wow we want other people to hear about this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Balancing Filmmaking and Teaching<\/h2>\n

The professor studied journalism before he became a filmmaker. Calling himself a quiet introvert, he sought an occupation that would help him overcome his fears and anxieties. He became a photojournalist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted a job that forced me to go to strangers and ask questions,\u201d he said. \u201cI had an internship at the Washington Post <\/em>when I made the decision that I wanted to tell stories that I wanted to tell, so I became an independent filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hashiguchi has been a faculty member at Georgia Southern since 2015. Teaching young storytellers, he said, is incredibly rewarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching film is much like being a journalist or a filmmaker,\u201d he noted. \u201cYou\u2019re learning about students, their stories and what they<\/p>\n

want to do with their lives, and hopefully, I can help them accomplish what they set out to do and who they want to become.\u201d<\/p>\n

One common piece of advice that he passes on to students is the importance of versatility in filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to be able to do many things,\u201d he said. \u201cSpecializing is not going to get them in the door. It\u2019s being able to shoot, it\u2019s being able to do audio, it\u2019s being able to edit and it\u2019s being able to produce. That will give them a great deal of self- reliance. Film is a profession that requires a great amount of personal ambition, entrepreneurial spirit and gumption. Those who make it in film don\u2019t wait to be offered a job in film, they just make films.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hashiguchi said the film industry is blossoming especially in the Savannah area. \u201cThere is this untapped market here in Georgia that our students have access to that many people in New York and Los Angeles are not even considering,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for students at Georgia Southern there are opportunities they should take advantage of because the industry is right here in our backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professor and filmmaker just finished a short documentary on undocumented college students and is in the early stages of developing a documentary about mental health and parenthood.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Sandra Bennett<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A New Year\u2019s Good Luck Dish The inspiration for the name of Professor Matthew Hashiguchi\u2019s documentary came from one of his family\u2019s traditions. \u201cGood Luck Soup\u201d is a traditional Japanese dish filled with mochi or rice cakes, broth, vegetables and a variety of other ingredients. It is served in Japanese homes on New Year\u2019s Day to ensure good fortune.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Matthew Hashiguchi has a complicated relationship with his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. Yet he treasures growing up as a multiracial Asian-American in a neighborhood of Irish Catholics and Italian-Americans. \u201cI live in Georgia but Cleveland will always be my home,\u201d he said. \u201cI am grateful that I had the experiences that I had. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":6857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-6855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-fall-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}