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209 articles
Tanforan: From Race Track to Assembly Center (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement
- Available
Documentary film on Tanforan , a former horse racing track that became the site of a wartime " assembly center " for incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II. The film includes interviews with many former inmates of Tanforan, some of whom lived in what were once horse stalls, including Maya Nagata Aikawa, George and Michiko Uchida, Tomoye Takahashi, Hid Kashima, Sox Kitashima, Dave Tatsuno , Yoneo Kawakita, Hiro Katayama, Sachi Kajiwara, Sugar Hirabayashi, Hiro Fujii, Yo Kasai, Chizu Togasaki, Tomoko Kashiwagi, Toru Saito, and Jan Matsuoka. Tanforan was produced by KCSM, a San Mateo, California based public television station as part of The New Americans series and was directed by Dianne Fukami. Funders for the film included the Chevron Corporation and the Ray and Peggy Daba Fund.
The Block Manager: A True Story of Love in the Midst of Japanese American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Self-preservation, Displacement
- Available
Incarceration memoir of a Nisei woman from Stockton, California, who becomes a block manager at the Stockton and Rohwer detention camps and who meets and marries her husband at the latter. The narrative follow the couple to Tule Lake and postwar Japan.
The Brothers Murata (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Family – blessing or curse, Nationalism – complications, Rights - individual or societal, Role of men
- Available
Novella by Toshio Mori about two brothers in Topaz who clash over the issue of military service. Likely written in Topaz, it was first published in the 2000 Mori anthology Unfinished Message: Selected Works of Toshio Mori .
The Evacuation Diary of Hatsuye Egami (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Non Fiction
- Chaos and order, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Inner versus outer strength, Motherhood, Self-awareness
- Available
Translation of the wartime diary of Hatsuye Egami, who carefully describes her experiences and observations while incarcerated at Tulare Assembly Center during World War II.
The Flower Girls (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Heartbreak of betrayal, Loss of innocence, Optimism – power or folly, Progress – real or illusion
- Available
Short story by Lawson Fusao Inada . Two girls named Cherry and Rose—dubbed the "flower girls" by their teacher—become best friends as first and second graders in Portland, Oregon, just prior to World War II. They play at each other's houses after school and explore each other's neighborhood, though both agree that Cherry's—the Japantown area known as Shita Machi—is more interesting. But the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drives a wedge between them, and Cherry and her family are soon sent away. While the girls exchange a few letters, they soon lose touch. Switching to the present, the narrator writes about a new Cherry and Rose, who meet to play in the Japanese garden of a Portland park.
The Harvest of Hate (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Loss of innocence, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Novel focusing on one Japanese American family's forced removal and incarceration written by a former teacher at Poston . Originally written in 1946, The Harvest of Hate first saw publication forty years later.
The Issei Prisoners of the San Pedro Internment Center (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Losing hope, Power and corruption, Will to survive
- Available
Novel by Stanley N. Kanzaki about Issei internees at the fictional San Pedro Internment Camp in New Mexico.
The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle from an American Concentration Camp (book)
- Books
- Historical Nonfiction
- Coming of age, Displacement, Facing reality, Family - blessing or curse, Self-awareness
- Available
The diary of Charles Kikuchi , a Nisei , and his observations about the chaos for Japanese Americans in the Bay Area after the bombing of Pearl Harbor as well as life in Tanforan Assembly Center .
The Red Tricycle (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Optimism – power or folly
- Available
The scene as a Nikkei family—a mother with her two daughters and four-year-old son Tommy—make the last preparations at their farmhouse before a truck comes to take them to the train station that will deliver them to a concentration camp. Their spirits are temporarily buoyed by a unexpected kind act by one of the soldiers who comes for them.
Tokyo Rose: Victim of Propaganda (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Facing darkness, Individual versus society
- Available
Television documentary for A&E network's "Biography" series that sympathetically tells the story of Iva Toguri d'Aquino and the myth of "Tokyo Rose."
The Tragic History of the Japanese-American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8
- Grades 7-8
- Children's, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Overview work on the Japanese American wartime removal and incarceration for middle school audiences that is part of Enslow Publishers' "From Many Cultures, One History" series.
Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature length documentary film that traces the basketball exploits of Wat Misaka, a Nisei from Utah who starred on two college basketball national championship teams and played briefly for the New York Knicks in the 1940s.
Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Individual versus society
- Available
Novel by Edward Miyakawa set in the eponymous concentration camp. Tule Lake was likely the first novel by a Japanese American set in one of the World War II concentration camps to be published when it first appeared in 1979. It was also notable for its unflinching portrayal of life in the most repressive of the camps.
Unfinished Message (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Motherhood
- Available
Seemingly autobiographical story by Toshio Mori about his mother and brother. The story begins in 1945 in Topaz , where the author's mother can't sleep one night because of anxiety about her son, who is serving in Europe. She later finds out that he was wounded in battle that night. Later, they arrange for his transfer to a hospital in the U.S, deciding on one near the family home in California. When they leave camp and return home, she is able to visit him at the hospital. However, she later dies in her sleep before her son is released. After her death, the author and his brother hear tapping on the window of the room in which she died, which they interpret as her message to them. Written by Mori in 1947, the story was first published in his 1979 short story collection, The Chauvinist and Other Stories and reprinted …
The Untold Story of Ralph Carr and the Japanese: The Fate of 3 Japanese-Americans and the Internment (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Japanese-produced documentary film on Colorado Governor Ralph Carr and his embrace of Japanese Americans during World War II, along with the experiences of three Japanese Americans affected in different ways by his stance.
When Justice Failed: The Fred Korematsu Story (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 3-5
- Children's, Biography
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
- Available
Biography for children of activist and exclusion challenger Fred Korematsu by journalist Steven A. Chin.
When Rabbit Left the Moon (film)
- Films and Video
- Widely available
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Video essay by Emiko Omori on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 that traces the story of the wartime forced removal and incarceration through moving and still images and spare original music by Janice Giteck and Todd Boekelheide. The film begins with images of the Issei period, moving on to images of the incarceration, and to various aspect of life in the concentration camps beginning with happier scenes before turning to harsher ones, including images of post-segregation Tule Lake and documents describing shooting victims at Manzanar and draft resistance . The film moves on to images connected to Nisei soldiers in camp and on the battlefield before ending with camp cemeteries and images of the sites today. The title refers to a Japanese proverb and also to Omori's 1999 documentary, Rabbit in the Moon .
Within Their Gates (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Dangers of ignorance, Injustice, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film directed by Matthew Goriachkovsky and narrated by eighty-three year old Yukio Shimomura. Shimomura tells the story of his incarceration at Manzanar over original music and period photographs and movies, along with contemporary footage of the site. The film ends with footage of Donald Trump's incendiary speeches and images of ICE detention centers, and protests and counter-protests, with Shimomura noting the parallels between his incarceration experience and the present.
Woman from Hiroshima (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Novel by Toshio Mori written in the first-person voice of an Issei woman telling her life story to two grandchildren shortly after World War II.
You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature-length documentary film on singer and actor Jack Soo . Based on interviews with friends and colleagues along with many clips from his film and television appearances, You Don't Know Jack also covers his time at Tanforan and Topaz during World War II.
When You're Smiling: The Deadly Legacy of Internment (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Power of the past
- Available
Autobiographical film by Janice D. Tanaka about growing up Sansei in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s amidst parental silence about their wartime incarceration. It was one of several films about aspects of the incarceration funded by the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund .
White Road of Thorns: Journalist's Diary—Trials and Tribulations of the Japanese American Internment During World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Will to survive
- Available
Wartime diary of Issei journalist and Japanese language school teacher Hisa Aoki that covers the period prior to her return to Japan on the second voyage of the Gripsholm . Originally published in Japan in 1953, it was translated into English by Archie Miyamoto at the behest of Aoki's elder daughter, Mary Yoko Nakamura.
Who's Going to Pay for These Donuts, Anyway? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Experimental documentary film by Janice Tanaka that centers on her finding and reuniting with a father and an uncle—one diagnosed as mentally ill and the other conventionally successful—neither of whom she had seen since childhood.
Why is Preparing Fish a Political Act? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography
- Convention and rebellion, Loss of innocence, Power of silence, Power of words, Role of women, Self-awareness
- Available
Short documentary film by Russell Leong that profiles Sansei poet Janice Mirikitani . Mirikitani reads several of her poems (from the collections Awake in the River and Shedding Silence ) and talks about her grandmother's resourcefulness; her rejection of her Asian heritage as a young college student and her first husband and daughter; the impact of the Asian American Movement; and her involvement with Gilde Memorial Church and her second husband Cecil Williams. In the final segment of the film, Mirikitani talks about the impact of the Japanese American incarceration on her family and on the community as a whole and reads the poem "We, the Dangerous."
We the People: The Stage Production (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Loss of innocence, Power of tradition
- Available
Short film that documents the performance of the elementary school age students of Jan Ken Po Gakko in Sacramento on July 20, 2000. The production is highlighted by a play performed by the students based on Mary Tsukamoto and Elizabeth Pinkerton's book We the People .