The Bracelet (film)

Short educational film that demonstrates the use of a popular children's book in an elementary school classroom. Patty Nagano, a teacher at Bret Harte Elementary School in the Alhambra, California, School District, begins by asking the class—which appears to consist of second or third graders—if they have experienced someone close to them moving away and listens as several children talk about their memories of such an experience. She then briefly explains what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II and reads the Yoshiko Uchida book The Bracelet to the class. As she reads, images of the class and Joanna Yardley's illustrations are augmented by archival photographs of the mass removal and incarceration, along with sound effects. After finishing the book, Nagano engages the class in a series of activities: asking them for their initial reactions to the book and answering questions about her and her family's experience; showing the children a suitcase and pulling out items from it related to the story; and briefly demonstrating a series of learning activities. An accompanying teacher's guide provides more detail about these activities.

The Bracelet is part of the Once Upon a Camp series of educational films produced by the Japanese American National Museum and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center and was directed by John Esaki.

Might also like Stories from America's Concentration Camps (2000); Take Me Home: A Child's Experience of Internment (2005); Half Kenneth (2008)