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7 articles
Enduring Democracy: The Monterey Petition (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Darkness and light, Importance of community, Power of words
- Available
Documentary film that tells the story of a petition signed by over four hundred white residents of the Monterey Bay area urging acceptance of returning Japanese Americans that appeared in the local newspaper in May 1945, claimed to be the only such petition to emerge from any West Coast area.
Tadaima (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Companionship as salvation, Darkness and light, Disillusionment and dreams, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
Short dramatic film by Robin Takao D'Oench that chronicles the return of a Japanese American family to their West Coast home after being released from an American concentration camp. The family—two presumably Issei parents and two presumably Nisei kids, an older teenage boy and younger teenage girl—arrive at a home that is unkempt and dirty and also marred by anti-Japanese graffiti both inside and out. As they set about making the house livable again, the two kids go out into the woods and dig up a box filled with Japanese objects—family photographs, documents, and precious objects such as Japanese dolls and clothing—they had presumably buried in the period prior to their forced removal. As they slowly settle back into their home, each family member finds some degree of hope by the end of the first day. The title is a Japanese expression generally uttered by someone who is announcing his …
Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Darkness and light, Expression through art, Nature as beauty
- Widely available
Documentary film on photographer Toyo Miyatake , directed by Robert A. Nakamura for the Japanese American National Museum in 2001. Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray traces Miyatake's various identities as Little Tokyo studio photographer of portraits, weddings, and other events before and after the war; prewar art photographer; and surreptitious chronicler of incarceration during World War II. The film is an expansion of Nakamura's earlier documentary on Miyatake, The Brighter Side of Dark: Toyo Miyatake, 1895–1979 . Among its awards are a CINE Gold Eagle and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the Florida Film Festival; it was also an official selection of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
Song of Anger: Tales of Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Darkness and light, Displacement, Injustice
- Available
Reflections and observations of a social worker in Tule Lake segregation center during World War II.
The Long Journey and the Short Ride (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Darkness and light, Motherhood, Optimism – power or folly, Reunion
- Available
Seemingly autobiographical story by Toshio Mori about the author and his brother, a paralyzed veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , recalling the latter's visit to Topaz prior to shipping out for combat in Europe. The author and his mother get a pass to leave Topaz for the first time since they had arrived in order to see the brother off at the train station. Their apprehensions about being outside the camp are eased by a white family—who had also just seen a son off to war—who offer them a ride to town. Shifting back to the present of the story, the author notes the successful recovery that his brother has made since the war and both brothers lament that neither of their parents lived to see that recovery. The same incident is the basis for another story Mori had written in 1943 titled " The Travelers ." "The …
A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (book)
- Books
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Grades 1-2
- Children's, Historical Fiction
- Darkness and light, Empowerment, Expression through art, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
Children's picture book by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino about Mari, a young Japanese American girl in Topaz , an American concentration camp during World War II. As the book begins, she plants sunflower seeds in the desert soil, hoping they will grow like the sunflowers in their old backyard. She recalls their prewar home, where she lived with her older brother and artist parents. At Topaz, she goes with her father to the art school he started. Initially unable to draw anything in the children's class, she slowly starts to find things to draw with the help of a supportive teacher, her father, and her new friend Aiko. After drawing a picture of her barrack with the sunflowers growing tall in front, she returns home to find little sunflower seedlings, giving her hope for the future. A final page provides biographies of the author and illustrator and …
People Aren't All Bad (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Companionship as salvation, Darkness and light, Evils of racism
- Widely available
Short video by Matthew Hashiguchi that centers on the wartime experience of Yutaka Kobayashi, a Nisei from San Francisco, who recalls a memorable moment of kindness from a guard at Topaz .