Browse > Time > 1980s

18 articles

Family Gathering (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Self-awareness
Available

Documentary film by Lise Yasui that chronicles her exploration of her family's hidden history—especially that of her paternal grandfather, Masuo Yasui —through interviews and family home movies and photographs. One of the most acclaimed films about the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, Family Gathering was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988.

Drops of Water (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Capitalism – effect on the individual, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Working class struggles
Widely available

Short story by Ferris Takahashi. A presumably young Sansei social worker and a colleague discuss the case of an elderly Issei homeless man who seems to want to remain homeless. Sections written from the perspective of the Issei man reveal his life as a laborer first on Hawai'i sugar plantations , then in the continental U.S. and the impact of his wartime incarceration and the razing of the residential hotel he once lived in.

A Fence Away From Freedom: Japanese-Americans and World War II (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
Widely available

Book for young adults that tells the story of the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans through the oral history voices of those who were children and young adults at the time.

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.

Aleut Evacuation: The Untold War Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past

Documentary film that tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of the Aleut people from their ancestral Alaskan homes to detention camps in southwest Alaska during World War II. Based on interviews with surviving inmates and their descendants and on historical photographs and documents, Aleut Evacuation proceeds in largely chronological fashion, starting with a brief portrait of the Aleut community prior to the war, then covering their forcible removal by the U.S. government—ostensibly for their own protection in the face of possible Japanese attack—and their subsequent incarceration in several different camps. Focusing first on the largest camp, Funter Bay, which held those from the Pribilof Islands, it also considers a camp on Killisnoo Island where those from Atka were held, along with Ward Lake, where those from smaller villages were incarcerated. Former inmates remember the poor and harsh conditions in the camps and the rampant health problems they …

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.

Conversations: Before the War/After the War (film)

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

A 1986 dramatic film by Robert Nakamura that is based on the play "Truth of the Matter" by Karen L. Ishizuka. In Conversations , three characters discuss their life experiences, feelings and the facts of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans, exploring the changes in their lives and long term effects of their wartime experiences. Though taking the form of oral history interviews, the three characters were nonprofessional actors playing composite characters based on their own experiences and that of others. The cast included Kimiko Nakamura—the mother of director Nakamura—along with Warren Furutani , playing a role based on his father, and Grace Ino, playing the part of a younger Nisei . in a 2009 interview, Nakamra said that the film "was experimental in that we used the experiences of the non-actors themselves reading transcripts of interviews, and a little bit of coaching." [1]

The Broken Lines of Age (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Desire to escape, Power of the past
Widely available

Short story by Jimmy Tokeshi about an Issei grandfather who takes his nineteen-year-old granddaughter on an impromptu pilgrimage to Manzanar on Christmas Eve decades after his wartime incarceration there.

Invisible Citizens: Japanese Americans (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
Limited availability

Early documentary film that highlights the experiences of Japanese Americans during and after World War II through profiles of six Japanese Americans from around the country.

Japanese American Internment Camps (Children's Press) (book)

Books
Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Children's, History
Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Available

Short overview book for younger children on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans that is part of Children's Press's "Cornerstones of Freedom," Second Series of books.

Justice Betrayed (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice
No availability

Documentary film on the internment of Japanese Americans from Hawai'i produced in 1992 by the Honolulu Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Justice Betrayed includes interviews with two Japanese Americans whose fathers were interned (Sandra Takahata, the daughter of artist George Hoshida , and Akira Otani, son of businessman Matsujiro Otani ); Tokushige and Mitsue Nakahara, boat builder brothers who were themselves interned; and Violet Ishii Hayashi, a woman from originally from Hawai'i who was on the West Coast at time of the mass expulsion and incarceration and ended up at Poston ; and legal scholar Eric Yamamoto and historian Franklin Odo. In addition to outlining the Hawai'i story, the film also covers Executive Order 9066 and the West Coast story as well as the issues with John DeWitt's Final Report that led to the corm nobis cases in the 1980s.

Justice Now! Reparations Now! (film)

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

Documentary film on the Redress Movement focusing on the contributions of the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations (NCRR), which produced it. The film provides a brief overview of the wartime incarceration, with a focus on resistance by Japanese Americans in and out of confinement. It then traces the roots of NCRR to 1960s social movements and the rise of redress as an issue in Japanese American communities in the 1970s, outlining NCRR's "grass roots" orientation. Footage from the Los Angeles hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians—which NCRR helped to organize—and well as excerpts of speeches by Norman Mineta and Robert Matsui in support of redress legislation are also included. The film culminates with footage of NCRR's July 1987 trip to Washington, DC, to lobby for redress legislation and with the passage and signing what would become the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 . Alan Kondo produced …

Kim/Kimi (book)

Books
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 6-8
Children's, Young Adult
Coming of age, Identity crisis, Quest for discovery
Widely available

Kim/Kimi (1987) by Hadley Irwin explores one teen's quest to discover herself by finding out about her father's past. Kimi Yogushi, who is more commonly known as Kim Anderson, has an Irish American mother. Kim's father Kenji, who had died before she was born, was Japanese American. Sixteen-year-old Kim happily lives with her family in an all-white community in Iowa but she begins to want to know more about the Japanese American part of her identity. Her mother finally tells Kim that Kenji had been disowned by his family for marrying outside his race.

Maybe (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Capitalism – effect on the individual, Necessity of work, Will to survive, Working class struggles
Widely available

Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a middle-aged Japanese American woman working in a sweatshop with a group of undocumented immigrant workers from Latin America. Divorced after twenty-five years of marriage, Florence wanders into a garment factory with a help wanted sign and is hired on the spot and given a relatively responsible position despite her lack of qualifications due to what she thinks is the owners' stereotype about "Japanese." In her first person voice, she introduces various workers as well as the owner's much younger Colombian immigrant wife who takes an immediate disliking to her. She befriends a young couple who were forced to leave their young son back in Mexico and are unable to bring him to the U.S.; the husband semi-jokingly asks Florence to marry him so that he can get a green card. At the end of the story she recalls her and her family's confinement …

Mitsuye and Nellie: Asian American Poets (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Female roles, Power of words, Role of women
Available

One of the earliest documentaries to broach the topic of Japanese American wartime incarceration, Mitsuye and Nellie profiles Asian American poets Mitsuye Yamada and Nellie Wong, showing them reading their poetry, meeting their family and visiting the Minidoka and Angel Island sites.

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.

Roar of Silence (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Communication—verbal and nonverbal, Power of silence, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

While watching a young boy play in a puddle, an elderly Nisei recalls his Issei father. Forced to start over again in his sixties in Chicago after having lost his farm during the mass roundup and incarceration, he also found his role as family leader usurped by his eldest son, who had been a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . Despite these setbacks, the narrator recalls the lessons his father had silently transmitted to him.

Fighting for Justice: The Coram Nobis Cases (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
Limited availability

Documentary film that provides a short overview of the coram nobis cases , based on interviews with attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami and television footage of other key figures.