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64 articles

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An American Christmas (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Working class struggles
Available

Short story by Alice Nash centering on an elderly Issei woman in contemporary New York. As she struggles to carry a bag of rice home to her apartment, she reflects on her arrival in New York with her late husband after leaving the concentration camp and the kind Yamaguchi family who put them up while refusing to take money from them. They eventually opened a cleaning shop that helped pay for their only son's college education. A successful businessman in California, the son takes her on a trip every year, but largely keeps her away from her grandchildren due to his white wife's discomfort with her. When she gets back to her apartment, the family of the building's supervisor, the Gonzalez family, invites her to their home to help decorate their Christmas tree.

An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
Widely available

An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten is the third book in a series published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i and University of Hawai'i Press of a Hawai'i inmate's account of their incarceration experience during World War II. It represents a critical addition to Japanese American history as it provides the perspective of an Issei from Hawai'i who authorities incarcerated at multiple sites in the Islands and the mainland. The author, Kumaji Furuya , thus gives voice to some of the experiences faced by the 1,320 inmates from Hawai'i who like Furuya were often separated from their families for the duration of the war.

Betrayed Trust: The Story of a Deported Issei and His American-Born Family During World War II (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Heartbreak of betrayal, Identity crisis, Immigrant experience, Losing hope
Available

A Nisei shares his family's heart-wrenching experience of wartime incarceration and the complex background behind their decision to go to Japan instead of staying in the U.S. after the end of the war.

The Brighter Side of Dark: Toyo Miyatake, 1895-1979 (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Immigrant experience
No availability

A 1996 short documentary film by Robert Nakamura about the life and career of Los Angeles photographer Toyo Miyatake . Through Miyatake's personal and artistic life (he was very much engaged with other modernists of the 1920s and '30s), the film reveals the vibrant artistic and intellectual milieu of Los Angeles's Little Tokyo district prior to World War II as well as the impact Executive Order 9066 and Miyatake's wartime incarceration had on his artistic career. Using a camera lens that he smuggled into the camp at Manzanar where he was incarcerated, Miyatake reconstructed a camera and eventually became the official camp photographer, producing iconic images of camp life and the landscape of the Eastern Sierras. After the war, Miyatake was able to reconstruct his photography business and resume work at his studio in Little Tokyo. For generations, he was the community's most trusted portrait photographer, enlisted for weddings, graduations, …

Chikara!: A Sweeping Novel of Japan and America From 1907 to 1983 (book)

Books
Historical Fiction
Change versus tradition, Coming of age, Death - inevitable or tragedy, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Emptiness of attaining a false dream, Evils of racism, Facing reality, Family - blessing or curse, Forgiveness, Greed as downfall, Fate and free will, Heartbreak of betrayal, Heroism - real and perceived, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Inner versus outer strength, Lost honor, Lost love, Nationalism - complications, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Power of the past, Will to survive
Available

This work of historical fiction traces the tumultuous rise and fall of the Hoshi family, whose scion, Sataro, takes his wife Itoko and eldest son Noboru to California in 1907 to seek his fortune and restore his family's honor. He leaves his second son Hiroshi behind with family, a decision that marks the inauspicious first step of the tragic transpacific drama that unfolds over the course of the novel.

Child Prisoner in American Concentration Camps (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 7-8
Memoir
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Working class struggles
Available

Memoir of a childhood spent in American concentration camps by a Nisei educator and activist from Seattle.

Seed: The Life of the Rice King and His Kin (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Circle of life, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Japanese produced documentary film on Issei rice farming pioneer Keisaburo Koda and the family business he founded in Dos Palos, California.

Civil Rights and Japanese-American Internment (curricula)

Curricula
Grades 9-12, Adult
Expression through art, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Injustice, Overcoming, Patriotism, Rights, War

Developed in 2000 by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) and the Institute for International Studies (IIS) at Stanford University, this high school/college curriculum module presents civil rights in the context of the Japanese-American experience from immigration in the early 20th century to World War II, and on through more contemporary issues of redress, reparations and memorializing the incarceration. Organized into six lessons, this curriculum can provide up to three weeks of stand-alone instruction or select lessons can be used to augment U.S. history textbook coverage.

Though I Be Crushed: The Wartime Experiences of a Buddhist Minister (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Immigrant experience, Injustice
Limited availability

Translated memoir of an Issei Buddhist priest focusing on his wartime incarceration at several camps.

The Crystal City (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of the past
Widely available

Documentary film about the Crystal City internment camp by Kenya Gillespie. The short film tells the story of three families—the Utsushigawas from Peru , the Fukudas from San Francisco, and Eisorlohs, German Americans from Ohio—through narration and mostly contemporary footage of the Crystal City site, as well as images from a contemporaneous Crystal City government film. There is also a brief excerpt of remarks by another internee, Haru Kuromiya.

Honoring Alameda's Japanese American History (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Importance of community, Immigrant experience, Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy
Limited availability

Conventional documentary on the history of the Japanese American community in Alameda, California, that is more or less equally divided between the prewar years and wartime incarceration/aftermath. Perhaps due to sponsorship by the Buddhist Temple of Alameda and the Buena Vista United Methodist Church, there is a focus on the history and activities of those two institutions throughout. While the first half is specifically on the Japanese American community in Alameda and is thus somewhat unique, the section on the wartime removal and incarceration is more general and thus repeats information that can be found elsewhere.

Imprisoned Apart: The World War II Correspondence of an Issei Couple (book)

Books
Non Fiction
Displacement, Facing darkness, Facing reality, Immigrant experience, Isolation, Will to survive
Available

An intimate history of one Issei couple's experience of World War II, including transcriptions of the letters they sent each other when they were incarcerated apart.

The Invisible Thread (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Memoir, Children's
Immigrant experience, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Expression through art, Facing darkness, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Widely available

Memoir for young adult readers by the acclaimed children's book author that covers her charmed childhood in Berkeley, California, and her wartime incarceration during World War II.

Japanese Americans Struggle for Equality (book)

Books
Grades 9-12
Grades 9-12
Children's, History
Immigrant experience, Injustice, Progress – real or illusion, Social mobility
Limited availability

Early overview book for young readers on the Japanese American experience framed through a lens of discrimination and the responses to it. Issued as part of a "Discrimination" series on various ethnic groups by Rourke Corporation (now Rourke Educational Media), it was published in 1992.

Japanese Immigrants in the United States and the War Era (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
History
Immigrant experience
No availability

Exhibition on Japanese Americans during World War II at the National Museum of Japanese History in Chiba, Japan. Displayed from March 16, 2010, to April 3, 2011, Japanese Immigrants in the United States and the War Era commemorated the opening of the approximately 7,500 square foot Sixth Exhibition Gallery (which displays contemporary history) at the National Museum of Japanese History (hereafter Rekihaku). [1] The special exhibition was the first at a Japanese national institution to focus on Japanese Americans, attempting to bring them into the mainstream of Japanese history.

The Japanese in America (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5
History
Empowerment, Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Available

Overview book for children on the history of Japanese Americans from the 1860s to the 1990s. First published in 1967 as one of the first books for children on Japanese Americans, it saw revised versions in 1974 and 1991.

Justice Denied: A History of the Japanese in the United States (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
History, Children's
Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Limited availability

Early overview of the history of Japanese Americans for young readers by British author/activist Jennifer Cross.

Kai's Mother (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Will to survive, Wisdom of experience
Available

Short story by Gretel Ehrlich told in the first person voice of an Issei woman as she rides the train back to California from Heart Mountain at war's end. The characters in the story were introduced in Ehrlich's earlier novel Heart Mountain .

Life behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Facing reality, Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Role of men
Widely available

Internment memoir by Honolulu Issei publisher and community leader Yasutaro Soga . Originally published in 1948 as Tessaku seikatsu , it was translated into English by Kihei Hirai and a team of volunteers at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) and published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2008.

The Little Exile (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 7-8
Memoir
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Immigrant experience
Available

Memoir by Jeanette A. Arakawa covering her wartime incarceration at the Stockton Assembly Center and Rohwer , Arkansas, concentration camp and postwar resettlement in Denver. Though written in the first person, her name and those of others in the book have been changed.

Living in Color: The Art of Hideo Date (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art, Injustice, Immigrant experience
Available

Retrospective exhibition featuring the work of Issei painter Hideo Date at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) that opened in 2001. Curated by Karin Higa, Living in Color draws on works Date donated to JANM as well as works held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum from the 1930s to the 1980s. An established artist by the 1930s, Date was sent to Santa Anita and Heart Mountain during the war, where he taught art and formed an Art Students League at the latter. Best known for his watercolor and gouache painting before the war, he turned to pencil drawings while incarcerated due in part to the difficulty of obtaining painting materials while in camp. The exhibition includes several of these drawings. Unlike artists such as Henry Sugimoto or Estelle Ishigo , Date's wartime drawings do not depict scenes from the concentration camps, most …

Looking After Minidoka: An American Memoir (book)

Books
Memoir
Change versus tradition, Coming of age, Displacement, Female roles, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Love and sacrifice, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Power of tradition, Will to survive
Available

A third-generation Japanese American shares the multi-generational story of both sides of his family, from immigration to the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and wartime incarceration, to resettlement and his own childhood.

The Lost Village of Terminal Island (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Displacement, Immigrant experience, Importance of community, Power of the past
Widely available

A 2007 documentary film directed by David Meltzer about Terminal Island , once home for a large and prosperous Japanese American fishing community located near the Port of Los Angeles, California. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , nearly 3,000 Japanese immigrants and their families who lived at Terminal Island were forced from their homes and into government concentration camps. Most of the original inhabitants of this tight-knit Japanese American village would never return. This film tells the story of childhood memories of growing up on a once idyllic Terminal Island as well as the painful experiences of suspicion, interrogation and incarceration (most Terminal Islanders were sent to the camp at Manzanar ) that the community suffered following the passage of Executive Order 9066. The film also traces the former residents' continuing identification with Terminal Island, noting the reunions that began in 1971 and climaxing with …

Mackerel Sky (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Immigrant experience, Will to survive, Working class struggles
No availability

Short story by Jeff Matsuda in which a young Sansei man recalls various stories about his Issei grandfather: visiting him and his grandmother when he was a child; recreating the old man talking about his youth in Japan and his early years as a laborer in the U.S.; and visiting him with his mother when he was in college, and his grandfather was a nearly deaf old man. In the process, the narrator recalls his grandfather's internment: as a fisherman on Terminal Island , he was arrested a week after Pearl Harbor and sent to Bismarck and then to an unspecified camp in New Mexico, while the rest of his immediate family spent the war years in Japan.

Mary Osaka, I Love You (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Everlasting love, Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications
Widely available

Short story by acclaimed writer John Fante about the love between a Filipino American immigrant man and a Nisei woman that takes place in Los Angeles as World War II breaks out. A part of Fante's intended novel on Filipino Americans, it was first published in Good Housekeeping magazine in October 1942.

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