Ann Curry Show Till We Meet Again Japanese american Renko
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Ann Curry grew upwardly hearing near her parents' chance meeting, their heartbreaking departing and ultimately their joyous reunion, a love story that she always idea would brand a corking movie. In that story of beloved at outset sight, Curry's father, Bob, a tall American Navy soldier stationed in Nihon, spotted Hiroe, the Japanese daughter of rice farmers, punching tickets on a streetcar.
Both 18, they barbarous in love. Simply their path to existence together was far from smooth. Bob had to asking permission from his military supervisors to marry Hiroe. His asking was denied and he was whisked abroad for his next service consignment, to Morocco.
Just he vowed he'd come back.
"My mom told the story of taking my dad to the train station and sitting there for hours afterwards he left, knowing her life wouldn't be what she wished it would be," Curry, 61, says. "So, she went on with her life."
The couple did reunite, as Bob promised, a few years later. They were married and went on to have five children, and their story—Hiroe always called it "Romeo and Juliet, Japanese-mode"—has influenced Back-scratch in almost every manner, including her conclusion to do We'll Meet Again, a new docuseries debuting January. 23 on PBS.
"My parents would be and so proud of me for doing this serial," she says of her mom, who died in 2001, and her dad, who died in 2008.
In Nosotros'll Meet Once again, the 7-time Emmy-winning announcer, photojournalist and former NBC News anchor and her documentary team tell emotional stories of people who'd previously connected with someone in powerfully transformative experiences, but then lost affect. Years later, they set out to detect those people once again, oft reshaping deplorable or even terrible moments into ones that demonstrate the indomitable power of the homo spirit.
Over the course of each episode of We'll See Again, viewers journeying along with the subjects, whether information technology'south a Vietnam War baby desperate to find the American father she hasn't seen for forty years; a businessman caught in the trauma of ix/11 searching for the woman who steered him to safety; or Reiko Nagumo, a Japanese-American girl interned in a WWII camp in 1942 who never forgot Mary Peters, the young classmate who stuck up for her when she was bullied in schoolhouse.
"Reiko had long idea about a girl she had met 70 years before," Curry says. "Her yearning, before she dies, is to connect with her and then she tin can thank the girl who inverse her life."
In the show, viewers follow along the sometimes-arduous steps it takes each subject to reconnect with their person from the by. As each episode unfolds, documents and archives are unearthed and examined; sometimes dead ends are encountered. The process tin span weeks, months, years and continents. "The feel of looking for someone is formidable," Curry says.
These stories are powerful because they're universal, and Curry expects to hear from a lot of people one time the bear witness premieres. "I remember there are millions of these stories," she says. "They speak to who we are and what we're made of, and besides to how much another human being tin touch on our lives with a give-and-take or wait or act of kindness."
Debating With Dad
A military deviling, Back-scratch was born in Guam and moved often, including stints in Japan, Oregon, Virginia and Hawaii. No shrinking violet, as the oldest of five siblings she recalls many an argument with her begetter after Walter Cronkite delivered the nightly news reports.
"We'd contend about the issues of the twenty-four hours," she recalls. "My dad would slam downward his fist and say, 'What is incorrect with those Vietnam War protestors? Don't they know it's "My country, correct or wrong"?' I would question whether nosotros should be in Vietnam, and my male parent would say, 'I can't believe a daughter of a career military person would say that.' "
At that point, Curry says her siblings would clear the room.
"They knew Dad and I were going to engage in a knock-down, drag-out fight, whether it was over Watergate, the women's liberation move or the civil rights movement," she says.
Simply she sees the value of those disagreements.
"I think my dad was trying to teach me the responsibility to intendance about the world," she says. "He wasn't trying to win. He'd ever say stuff like, 'Ann, I don't always agree with you. Merely I'd still vote for y'all for president.' "
Years after, soon before her father died of cancer, Curry received the Simon Wiesenthal Center Medal of Valor for her reporting on the genocide in Darfur, and her dad was there in the audience.
"I [once] asked my dad, 'What practice you think I should be when I grow up?' and he said, 'Whatever you practise, do something of some service to someone else. Then and only and then will y'all know, on your last dying jiff, that it mattered that you were built-in,' " Back-scratch says.
Her long and storied career spans delivering the offset alive news written report to an American audience from the South Pole to conducting interviews with U.S. presidents, including George Westward. Bush and Barack Obama. She covered wars, tsunamis and earthquakes. But she always gravitated to stories of the disenfranchised.
"When all the media goes in 1 direction, I'll go the other," she says. "I want to find the stories that haven't been told, and I take e'er cared most telling the stories of those who aren't heard."
Curry remains a fan favorite since she left NBC's Today show in 2012, where she served for 15 years, first as a news anchor and then as co-anchor. From 2012 to 2015, she was a national and international contributor for NBC News and an ballast-at-large for Today.
"If I'one thousand on a flying, I'll become a napkin with a annotation with hearts and flowers from a flight attendant saying, 'We honey yous, we miss you,' " she says. "It's been this kindness from fans that has lifted me through all the skilful times and bad." (At printing fourth dimension, Back-scratch had no annotate on a possible return to NBC after anchor Matt Lauer'south divergence.)
"Saving The World"
Having a supportive family has enabled her to travel to cover the stories she longs to tell. Married for 28 years to software executive Brian Ross, and mom to girl McKenzie, 25, and son Walker, 22, she says Ross has always been hugely supportive.
"I married a person who would tell our kids, 'I know Mom's not here, just we have to back up her in her life's purpose,' " says Curry.
She recalls ane particular consignment that was challenging for her kids when they were young. "I retrieve going to my dominate, [former Today executive producer] Jeff Zucker, telling him that we were witnessing genocide in Bosnia and that we had to do more coverage," she recalls. Curry wasn't angling for the assignment, but Zucker gave it to her—telling her on the phone when she was at the shop to purchase her daughter's Easter dress. And she had to leave now.
When Curry told McKenzie that she wouldn't be home for Easter, her daughter burst into tears.
"I got on a plane and camped out in Kosovo, going live every morning with the story for a week," Back-scratch recalls. "I finally called my kids on a satellite phone on the way out. I apologized for missing Easter, and my daughter said, 'Mom, information technology wasn't right what was happening to those people.' When I got home, my kids had written signs saying, 'My mom is saving the world.' They recognized something that was bigger than me and them and, in that way, possibly it was OK I missed Easter."
These days, her kids are in their 20s, and every bit head of her own production company, Back-scratch has more control over her schedule than ever. She still works on projects that mean something to her—like We'll Run across Again—and makes time for family unit.
During a Curry Christmas at their New York City dwelling, the family keeps to tradition.
"We fill our Christmas stockings, and I make the kids necklaces with bells on the ends," she says. "We fill the firm with Christmas lights, and non just on the tree. We put them on the pictures, furniture, doorknobs and the banister."
The day is spent opening presents and eating.
"I make a standing rib roast and my husband helps me make Yorkshire pudding," she says. "I besides make a actually mean carbohydrate cookie. Information technology's Martha Stewart'south recipe and includes grated orange rind. You use just a affect."
Ultimately, at this time of year when thoughts turn toward thankfulness, Curry senses that her life has come up full circumvolve with her new series. In a mode, she's met herself again.
"The bear witness reminds united states of america of how human we are," she says. "It reminds us of our chapters to be powerful in each other'southward lives and to be compassionate in ways that I retrieve are fundamental to the style we're made, but sometimes nosotros tin can easily forget.
"When we human action with pity, that makes our lives valuable," she says. "I know that when people watch these episodes, they will get something out of it. I also know that the people we interviewed have been afflicted for the skilful. I feel lucky I can try to practice proficient in this earth."
Source: https://parade.com/628607/lhochwald/ann-curry-explores-the-power-of-love-in-pbs-well-meet-again/