Browse > Theme > Importance of community

69 articles

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Doka B-100 (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Character – destruction, building up, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Working class struggles
Widely available

Short story by Ernest Nagamatsu on the difficult adjustment to civilian life of a group of World War II veterans. Written in the first person voice of an ex-GI named Hamamoto in 1954, "Doka B-100" coveys both Hamamoto's alienation and the welcoming embrace of Little Tokyo Los Angeles . Estranged from his domineering father because of the way he left the service (despite serving heroically in the 442nd , he quit before his time was up) and his choice of social work as an occupation, Hamamoto's wife had decided to go back to her family in Chicago with their daughter to get away from the arguments. Finding a small apartment in Little Tokyo and a part time job in a diner, he finds a niche in starting to counsel the veterans who would gather in a Little Tokyo pool hall. That work eventually leads to a paying job with the …

Emi (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Injustice, Importance of community
Limited availability

Documentary film about a Nisei woman returning to Manzanar and to her prewar community on Bainbridge Island , Washington, for the first time some thirty-five years after being forcibly removed.

The Empty Chair (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Power of the past, Importance of community
Available

Feature length documentary film by Greg Chaney that recounts the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from Juneau, Alaska, during World War II.

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.

Forced Out: Internment and the Enduring Damage to California Cities and Towns (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Importance of community, Power of the past
Limited availability

A 2003 documentary film that explores the subject of the Japanese American forced removal and mass incarceration during World War II and its economic impact on California's Japantowns through the stories of merchants and community institutions. Among the stories highlighted are Honnami Taedo, a ceramics shop in San Francisco Japantown; the Rafu Shimpo newspaper, Fugetsudo sweet shop, and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo; a San Francisco-based quilt project by Japanese American women that documents the wartime events; and the Asahi Market in Oxnard, which was run for the Japanese American proprietors by a Mexican American family during the war.

From a Different Shore: An American Identity (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Change versus tradition, Importance of community, Power of the past, Reunion
Limited availability

Documentary film produced by Great Britain's The Open University that examines the Japanese American community by focusing on three families in Los Angeles.

Good Luck Soup (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Importance of community, Individual versus society, Power of tradition
Widely available

Autobiographical documentary film by Matthew Hashiguchi that explores his and his family's experience growing up as mixed-race Japanese Americans in Cleveland, Ohio. Hashiguchi draws inspiration from his Nisei grandmother and family matriarch Eva Hashiguchi, who settled in Cleveland after leaving the Jerome , Arkansas, concentration camp during World War II and chose to remain there. In addition to the feature length film, the Good Luck Soup project also includes an interactive website that serves as an "participatory storytelling" platform.

Great Grandfather's Drum (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Importance of community, Power of the past, Power of tradition
Available

Documentary film that tells the story of Japanese Americans in Maui through the story of Maui Taiko and its founder, Kay Fukumoto.

Right of Passage (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Empowerment, Female roles, Importance of community, Power of the past
Available

Documentary film by Janice D. Tanaka that chronicles the convoluted twenty-year history of the Redress Movement .

Resettled Roots: Legacies of Japanese Americans in Chicago (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Importance of community, Power of silence, Rebirth
Available

Documentary film on the evolution of the Japanese American community in Chicago . Directors Anna Takada and Maria Pimentel tell the story using a generational framework with a brief prologue on Japanese immigration and the prewar Issei era and a longer segment on the wartime roundup and incarceration centered on the Nisei , before turning to Nisei and Sansei recollections of resettlement to Chicago and growing up there after the war. Many of the Sansei recall their parents' silence about their wartime experiences. The last segment focuses on Yonsei and recent activism featuring 2019 footage from an all camps reunion in Chicago and on a protest march that saw Chicago Japanese Americans drawing on their history to protest immigrant detention and deportation today.

Ralph Story's Los Angeles: Little Tokyo (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly, Self-reliance, Social mobility
No availability

Episode of the popular 1960s weekly television show featuring the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. Filmed largely in Little Tokyo, the program covers both the history of the neighborhood and its then current status and includes a discussion of the wartime incarceration of its population.

"Wase Time!": A Teen's Memoir of Gila River Internment Camp (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Role of men
Limited availability

First person memoir by Kenneth A. Tashiro of his and his family's forced removal and incarceration at the Gila River , Arizona, concentration camp. After a brief introduction that introduces Tashiro's family, the story begins on Pearl Harbor day when Kenneth—nicknamed "Iggy"—hears about the start of the war after exiting an Abbott and Costello movie. He and his family move from Los Angeles to Del Rey in an attempt to avoid incarceration, but they are eventually removed from Sanger to Gila in August of 1942. His father, Kenji Tashiro, is a journalist, who becomes the editor of the camp newspaper , before leaving to join the army at age 37. His mother, eight months pregnant at the time of the removal, stays behind for a time, rejoining the family later with the baby girl. Twelve when he entered the camp, Tashiro's perspective is purely that of an active teenager, so …

39 Months at Tule Lake (book)

Books
Memoir
Empowerment, Importance of community, Injustice
Available

The diary of a white staff member at Tule Lake offers his take on the tumultuous events there after it was made a segregation center .

A Session at Tak's Place (short story)

Short Stories
Adult
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Companionship as salvation, Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly
Widely available

Short story by Manzen (Tom Arima) about four old Nisei men discussing the future of the Japanese American community and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Tak, a 65-year-old retiree, wakes up one morning with an uneasy feeling after a late night JACL meeting the previous evening. His close friend Nobe, a JACL lifer, drops by to talk about the meeting, and they are soon joined by two more friends, Joe and Mits. The four talk about the role they and the JACL should take in the implementation of the recently passed Civil Liberties Act of 1988 , what to make of a recent JACL resolution to investigate the organization's actions regarding the so-called " No-No Boys ," and the role of the JACL. After a spirited discussion, Tak feels much better and is grateful for the men's friendship.

Reluctant Samurai: Memoirs of an Urban Planner (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Family – blessing or curse, Fulfillment, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
Limited availability

Memoir by a Nisei man that recounts his agricultural upbringing, his time in American concentration camps, and his postwar career as an urban planner who was a key figure in the redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles.

A Thousand Paper Cranes: How Denver's Japanese American Community Emerged from Internment (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Importance of community, Power of the past, Rebirth
Widely available

Documentary film about the wartime incarceration and about Japanese Americans in Denver after the war. Scenes shot at the Amache site today serve as a backdrop for the incarceration stories, while the segments on Denver focus on the importance of Colorado Governor Ralph Carr and on Sakura Square, the symbolic center of Colorado's Japanese American community.

The Sakai Family of Bainbridge Island (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Necessity of work, Reunion, Role of women
Limited availability

Documentary film on the Sakai family, longtime residents of Bainbridge Island, Washington , based primarily on an interview with Kazuko "Kay" Sakei Nakao.

An Abandoned Pot of Rice (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Immigrant experience, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
No availability

Short essay by Hisaye Yamamoto DeSoto about the Kumamoto-mura community near Oceanside, California, where her family lived just prior to World War II. The pleasant reminiscences of life there are tempered by recollections of the chaos after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. The title of the story comes from the narrator's recollection of making a pot of rice intending to make rice balls on the day of their forced departure, but forgetting about it, leaving the full pot behind. Years later, she returns to the site of the community, which subsequently became a large military base which for a time housed tens of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees. Noting the similarities with the concentration camps she and her family were in, she observes that this group was the third group of Asians to …

A Time Remembered: The Terminal Island Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Importance of community, Immigrant experience, Injustice
Limited availability

Documentary film on the Japanese American community on Terminal Island , a fishing village of the Southern California coast that was the first such community to excluded en masse in February 1942.

The Legacy of Heart Mountain (film)

Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Will to survive
Widely available

Documentary that explores various human interest stories centered on the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp. Produced and written by KABC-TV (Los Angeles) news anchorman David Ono and documentary filmmaker Jeff MacIntyre, The Legacy of Heart Mountain aired on local and national television and won three local area Emmy Awards.

Uncle Yozo (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Disillusionment and dreams, Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly
No availability

Comical story by Ted Tajima about an Issei man at an unspecified concentration camp who enlivens the first Christmas in camp by elaborately playing Santa. A regular contributor of stories to the Rafu Shimpo holiday edition, Tajima taught at Alhambra High for 35 years and led their acclaimed journalism program.

To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Importance of community, Love and sacrifice
Widely available

Famous actor and celebrity recounts some of the most important periods of his life, including his early childhood spent at Rohwer and Tule Lake concentration camps.

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.

We Are Not Free (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Children's, Historical Fiction
Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Facing darkness, Importance of community
Widely available

Young adult novel by Traci Chee that tells the wartime incarceration story through the eyes of a group of teenage friends from San Francisco.

We the People: A Story of Internment in America (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of women
Available

Memoir of Florin, California-based Nisei educator and activist Mary Tsukamoto co-authored by Elizabeth Pinkerton and published in 1987 when Tsukamoto was seventy-two. Though the book covers her entire life, well over half of it focuses on her and her family's wartime confinement, their resettlement in the Midwest, and eventual return to California.

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