James E. McCall joined the U.S. Army in 1909 and traveled to the Philippines to serve as a cook in the infantry at Jolo, Sulu in the southern islands. By 1915 he was discharged, had married a Filipino girl from Luzon, and was determined to make a place for himself in the Philippines. With a talent for writing, art and education, he did just that.

Many others came to the Islands during the decades before World War II: miners, accountants and bankers, engineers, merchants, clergy and missionaries, bakers, dentists, druggists, importers, and tens of thousands of others who saw a future for themselves in the Philippines. And make a future for themselves, they did–until the Japanese came. . . .

This documentary film traces the story of James E. McCall and the thousands of his fellow expatriates from the fall of the Philippines, internment and struggle, and to their liberation three years later. McCall’s art and humor and the stories of countless others tell the dramatic portrait of brutality, death, hope, endurance, and sacrifice. This is their story.

Length: 58 minutes