About the Resource Guide

Overview

The Densho Resource Guide to Media on the Japanese American Removal and Incarceration is a directory to hundreds of children's books, literary works, films and videos, plays, curriculum guides, websites and other media that touch on the incarceration and its aftermath. While aimed at educators, we hope the guide will be useful for anyone looking for just the right book, video, or other work on the incarceration.

The impetus for the guide is the outpouring of media on the incarceration topic in the past two decades. There are a number of reasons for this phenomenon, but let me note three interrelated factors: (1) The impact of 9/11 and the subsequent rise of anti-Muslim sentiment reminded many of the hysteria against Japanese Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and generated greater interest in the subsequent history; (2) The subject became more commonly taught in schools and noted in textbooks, leading to many new children's books and curriculum guides; and (3) The presence of government funding for media projects through state and federal Civil Liberties Public Education programs (1998 to the present) and the federal Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program (2008 to the present). Even for someone well versed in the topic, it can be overwhelming to try to keep track of all that has come out and that continues to pour out.

The resource guide includes hundreds of entries on both well known and obscure media spanning early works from the 1940s to the present. While we've attempted to be comprehensive, we know that there will inevitably be some works missing, so the guide will continue to be updated.

The guide is an extension of the Densho Encyclopedia. While most of the articles in the resource guide are unique to it, some articles for works that have played a significant role in how we have come to view the history of the removal and incarceration are in both the guide and the encyclopedia.

The guide was produced through funding from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant program. Brian Niiya served as the editor of the guide, while Geoff Froh and Geoff Jost created the technology infrastructure. Dana Hoshide copy-edited the articles and added images, while Virginia Yamada handled grant administration. While many authors contributed to the guide—and each is credited in the articles they wrote—a few contributed a significant number of articles, including Emily Anderson (memoirs and fiction), Janet Hayakawa (curricula), Jan Kamiya (children's books), Kelly Nakamura (works on Hawai'i), Patricia Wakida (film/video), and Stan Yogi (poetry).