January 19, 2010 (Tuesday) 6:30 PM

Brian Tadashi Maeda, film director, will be speaking about his current film project: "Samurai of Gold Hill"

It is the fascinating sage of the "Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony," first Japanese colony to establish itself in California.

The last samurai group of Aizu-Wakamatsu during the Bakumatsu (the End of Tokugawa Shogunate) period, escaped from Japan with a lead of a German to settling in Gold Hill, California.

The year was 1869, the second year of the Meiji when they finally arrived at California.