Browse > Availabilty > Limited availability
115 articles
Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Growing up – pain or pleasure
- Limited availability
Experimental documentary film by Bob Nakamura made in 1971 that was one of the first films to explore the legacy of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Manzanar Rites (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction, History
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Rights - individual or societal, Vulnerability of the strong
- Limited availability
Coming of age novel by William Hohri about two teenage boys from West Los Angeles who end up at Manzanar with their families.
Matsumi Kanemitsu: A Japanese American Artist (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art
- Limited availability
Short profile of artist Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu that includes his own thoughts about his techniques and goals as an artist. Narrator Amy Hill provides a brief outline of his life and work accompanied by many photographs and the music of Miles Davis. His World War II experience as a Kibei in the U.S. Army is largely passed over to focus on his postwar art career.
Meeting at Tule Lake (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Evils of racism, Injustice
- Limited availability
Documentary film produced and directed by Scott T. Tsuchitani that features interviews with seven former Tule Lake inmates talking about life in the camp, the "loyalty questionnaire" and segregation, and the importance of remembering, intercut with footage of poet Hiroshi Kashiwagi reading the title poem and of a Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Meeting at Tule Lake was produced by the Tule Lake Committee for the 1994 Tule Lake Pilgrimage.
Memories of the Camps (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Power of the past, Injustice
- Limited availability
Locally produced documentary by Los Angeles TV station KABC that provides an overview of the concentration camps and community efforts to remember them on their fiftieth anniversary. Hosted by KABC news anchor Joanne Ishimine, the program begins at Heart Mountain where former inmate and camp historian Bacon Sakatani gives a tour of the camp and talks about his experience and the larger impact of incarceration. The next segment is on Manzanar , focusing on Toyo Miyatake and his photographs, featuring an interview with his son Archie. The last segments focus on the commemoration of the camps: a visit to a UCLA class that Sakatani speaks to and interviews with the students; some of those same students at the 50th anniversary Manzanar Pilgrimage ; and visits to the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and Japanese American National Museum in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. A copy of the …
Mission in Manila: The Sakakida Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Facing darkness, Forgiveness, Heroism – real and perceived, Will to survive
- Limited availability
Documentary film that tells the story of Richard Sakakida , a Nisei intelligence agent in the Philippines who is captured and tortured by the Japanese during World War II and who confronts—and forgives—his torturers after the war. The film is based almost entirely on an interview with Sakakida, augmented by narrator Jerry Kay, archival footage and family photographs, and illustrations by Roberta Twidwell. The 28-minute film was produced by the Military Intelligence Service and the National Japanese American Historical Society for the Military Intelligence Service Fellowship Program.
Nisei Soldier: Standard Bearer for an Exiled People (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Patriotism - positive side or complications, Injustice, Heroism - real or perceived
- Limited availability
Influential documentary film by Loni Ding that was the first of many to specifically focus on the story of Japanese Americans who served in the armed forces during World War II.
The Nisei Farmer (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Short
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Injustice, Power of the past, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Short dramatic film about a Nisei couple, Hank (Steven Kondo) and Aki (Jude Narita), who farm in Northern California. When news of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 spreads, Hank becomes morose and angry, as it triggers boyhood memories of his family's incarceration, which are shown in flashback scenes. He also lashes out at Aki, who did not go to camp, when she suggests they use the money to go on a vacation. But after further thought and reflection on the incarceration and redress, he recognizes the source of his anger and comes around to the idea of going away.
9066 to 9/11: America’s Concentration Camps Then… and Now? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Dangers of ignorance, Evils of racism, Wisdom of experience
- Limited availability
A 2004 documentary film directed by Akira Boch that looks at the World War II expulsion of Japanese Americans into American concentration camps through the contemporary lens of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Immediately following the attacks, there was an instant public backlash against Arab Americans and Muslims. As the United States government fought a "war on terrorism" with no end in sight, its tactics and policies were noticeably reminiscent of the rhetoric and immediate steps taken that led to the mass incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. The film draws comparisons between the Japanese and Muslim American experiences, provoking questions about immigration, patriotism, equality and the civil rights and liberties of all American citizens, especially during times of national emergency.
Nisei Odyssey: The Camp Years (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Displacement, Facing reality, Injustice, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Limited availability
Nisei's recollections of his experiences incarcerated in an assembly center and concentration camp during World War II as well as a recounting of various stories he remembers hearing from others both before and during the war.
Nasakenai (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Facing reality, Will to survive, Working class struggles
- Limited availability
Short story about an Issei couple in the San Francisco Bay area in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor . Both work as servants—the husband as a gardener and the wife as a maid—for prominent white families in a wealthy adjacent community and support three children at home, with a son in the army. After the attack, the husband goes to work and is assured by his employer that she will not fire him despite community pressure to do so. But the wife, who has worked for the family of a prominent lawyer for over a decade, is fired, since the lawyer represents a farming organization that supports anti-Japanese actions. An Issei gardener who works for the same family is also fired. Afterwards, the wife visits briefly with the family of the gardener and goes home to work on her garden, vowing that things will be okay.
My Mother's Music (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Power of the past, Power of silence, Role of women
- Limited availability
Short story by Lydia Yuri Minatoya told from the perspective of a Sansei woman recalling her Kibei mother's various stories—and silences—about the family history. The narrator's mother recalls her Issei mother's banishment from the family after she had an affair with a Filipino immigrant patron of the family-run pool hall and how she never saw her mother again. The mother also recalls her own arranged marriage while in Heart Mountain , but can recall little—or is unwilling to talk about—details of her and her family's wartime incarceration. My Mother's Music appeared in the fifth volume of the Fusion series published by the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University. Minatoya later published a memoir titled Talking to High Monks in the Snow: An Asian-American Odyssey (1989)—which includes "My Mother's Music" as its first chapter—as well as a novel, The Strangeness of Beauty (2001).
Nikkei Style (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Change versus tradition, Importance of community, Power of tradition, Quest for discovery
- Limited availability
Personal essay on being Japanese American by Sansei filmmaker Steven Okazaki , narrated in his first person voice. Beginning his journey at a family mochizuki event in Oxnard, California, he explores his family history, taking us to the house he grew up in in Venice, California, and telling us what he knows of his mother's and father's families, including their World War II incarceration (his mother went to Santa Anita , then Amache , his father to Heart Mountain ) and featuring a brief interview with his mother. In search of more information about his father's side, he goes to Japan to visit a distant cousin and to Hawai'i to visit one of his father's old army buddies, from whom he learns much. The film ends with footage from various bon dances in Hawai'i and the continental U.S, which Okazaki cites as a living symbol of being Japanese American. Along …
Personal Justice Denied: An Issue for All Americans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Video of a February 19, 1998, panel discussion at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on the topic of the coram nobis cases , featuring presentations by principals Fred Korematsu and Gordon Hirabayashi and lead attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami.
A Personal Matter: Gordon Hirabayashi vs. the United States (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Character - destruction, building up, Rights - individual or societal
- Limited availability
Documentary film on Gordon Hirabayashi and his legal challenge to the World War II-era measures against Japanese Americans during the war and the revival of that challenge forty years later. John de Graaf directed the 28-minute documentary, which tells his story in a largely chronological manner, ending with the 1980s coram nobis case verdict. In addition to Hirabayashi's own words and contemporary footage of him visiting such key locales as the Federal Court House in Seattle, where he was first tried; the King County Jail, where he was incarcerated; and his alma mater, Auburn High School, the filmmakers tell the story through interviews with two of his brothers, friends, and some of his lawyers (including Arthur Barnett , his friend and lawyer in the 1940s cases). A Personal Matter aired nationally on Public Broadcasting Service stations in 1992. Among the funders of the film are the National Commission on the …
Pleasure of Plain Rice (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Desire to escape, Self-awareness, Working class struggles
- Limited availability
Essay/story by Hisaye Yamamoto on racial identity that focuses on her month-long stint as a domestic in Springfield, Massachusetts, during World War II. She begins the piece by noting various white Americans she knows who have changed their ethnic-sounding last names to less ethnic sounding ones, noting the futility of her doing such a thing as a Japanese American, citing the mass incarceration during World War II. Anxious to leave Poston , where she and her family ended up, she and two of her younger brothers are allowed to leave for Massachusetts in the summer of 1944. While her fifteen-year-old brother Yuke is placed in a summer camp in the Berkshires, the War Relocation Authority office in Boston assigns her and her seventeen-year-old brother Jemo to become domestic servants for a wealthy widow in Springfield. Both initially dislike the stern and formal family and the job duties that had to …
One with the Angels (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Death – inevitable or tragedy, Facing darkness, Loss of innocence, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Short story by Yachiyo Uehara about a young woman's death shortly after leaving the concentration camps. The story begins in the present when Saye sees an editorial cartoon in a Japanese American newspaper that laments the fact that the $20,000 reparations payments advocated by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) would be too late for many former inmates. She then recalls her younger sister Yoko's story and how even a fraction of that money might have changed its course. Imprisoned in Heart Mountain with her family, Yoko leaves for New York City in 1944 and soon finds a good job and a nice apartment. The widowed Saye and her young son soon join Yoko and have a joyous reunion and initially enjoy their new life. But a demanding job and active social life—including an ill-fated lover affair—drain Yoko, and she is soon diagnosed with tuberculosis, which …
The Old Man on Crutches (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Companionship as salvation, Power of words, Wisdom of experience
- Limited availability
Short story by Setsuko Nagata about the title character whom the narrator meets while serving as a waitress at a Tanforan Assembly Center mess hall. The man, named Mr. Mine, takes a liking to the narrator and shares Chinese poetry with her. When they move to the Topaz , Utah, concentration camp, he visits her on occasion, but when he requests repatriation, he moves to Tule Lake . The narrator hears that he eventually did return to his native Kumamoto, Japan.
A Piece of Cake (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Female roles, Importance of community, Role of women
- Limited availability
Short story by Yachiyo Uehara that recalls friendships made while in a concentration camp. In the 1980s, a Nisei woman named Fumi is making a roast when she notices a story about a Heart Mountain reunion in the newspaper. The article triggers memories of her two years at Heart Mountain forty years prior, in particular her work as a waitress in the Block 17 mess hall. A city girl from San Francisco, she is at first treated as an outsider by fellow workers who mostly hailed from rural areas. But through her hard work and skill in the Japanese language, she wins them over, in particular the group's de facto leader, Mrs. Shirota. The story climaxes with a visit to the Shirotas' family barrack, where Mrs. Shirota has secured the rare treat of a manju (rice and sweet bean pastry) that the chefs had managed to concoct. Fumi is particularly …
Only What We Could Carry: The Santa Anita Assembly Center (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- History
- Displacement, Injustice
- Limited availability
Temporary exhibition at the Ruth and Charles Gilb Arcadia Historical Museum about the nearby detention facility. Drawing on photographs, objects, and issues of the Santa Anita Pacemaker in the museum's collection, Only What We Could Carry opened in November 2009. The museum also includes the story of the Santa Anita Assembly Center as part of its permanent gallery on the history of Arcadia.
Remembering Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Introductory video at the Manzanar National Historic Site's Visitor Center. Commissioned by the National Park Service and produced by Signature Communications of Huntingtown, Maryland, in 2004, Remembering Manzanar provides a broad overview of the Japanese American wartime forced removal and incarceration based on interviews with a dozen former inmates, along with residents of the area around Manzanar and a teacher at Manzanar. None of the narrators are identified as they talk and none are pictured onscreen. Visuals consists entirely of archival still and moving images, including clips from newsreels and War Relocation Authority films along with home movies shot by inmates; period cartoons and caricatures; period artifacts; and contemporary footage of the Manzanar site. The 22-minute video is shown every half-hour at the Manzanar Visitor Center. No director, editor, or cinematographer is credited.
Resistance at Tule Lake (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Documentary film that tells the story of the Tule Lake concentration camp, with a focus on the post-segregation period, through interviews with former inmates, archival images, and scenes from contemporary pilgrimages .
A Circle of Freedom: Lost and Restored (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Importance of community
- Limited availability
Exhibition at the History Museum of Hood River County on the Japanese American experience in Hood River, Oregon. Instigated by Museum Coordinator Connie Nice once she learned of the of the wartime incarceration of local Japanese Americans and the particularly virulent opposition to their postwar return, the exhibition has the support of the local community. The small exhibition included four sections: "Our Lives Before," "Our Lives Removed," " Our Lives in Camp," and "Our Lives in Service." Included in the exhibition are documents from the local American Legion chapter, which made national headlines in 1944 when it removed the names of Nisei soldiers from a local "roll of honor." The exhibition subsequently became a semi-permanent part of the museum.
Crafting History: Arts and Crafts from America's Concentration Camps (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Desire to escape
- Limited availability
2002 exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Crafting History highlighted some 400 objects from JANM's collection made by Japanese Americans held in American concentration camps during World War II, ranging from a five foot tall Buddhist altar carved in Heart Mountain to bird pins, clothing and other textiles, and furniture. Curated by Kristine Kim, the exhibition opened on November 16, 2002. A full slate of public programs took place during the six-month run of the exhibition, including many crafting workshops. Craft items from the camps were also the subject of The Art of Gaman , a lavishly illustrated book published in 2005 and an exhibition that traveled around the country and in Japan starting in 2010.
Crossroads in Nihonmachi (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement, Importance of community, Rebirth
- Limited availability
A 2006 documentary film by Adrianne Anderson and Tony Sondag about the redevelopment struggle in San Francisco's Japantown. As in other cities on the West Coast, plans for urban renewal disproportionately affected ethnic minorities including Japanese Americans, destroying or diminishing historical Japantowns after World War II. The film traces the history of San Francisco's Nihonmachi, focusing on the eviction of Japanese American residents of San Francisco's Nihonmachi starting in the 1960s—drawing parallels with the 1942 eviction of Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066 —and 1970s efforts by community members to halt evictions and preserve and reclaim the community and its history. The film covers the 100th anniversary celebration of the community in 2006, while also noting the continuing threats it faces.