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214 articles
Gila River and Mama: The Ruth Mix Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Loss of innocence, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film that tells the story of the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans through the eyes of Ruth Mix, who as a fifteen year old, accompanied her mother Frida, a teacher, to Gila River and lived among the inmates. Filmmaker Claire Mix is the daughter of Ruth.
Am I a Traitor? (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Facing reality, Nationalism – complications, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Essay by Issei socialist journalist Shigeki Oka (1878–1959) focusing on his decision to aid the Allies and oppose the Japanese militarist regime during World War II. Oka begins by describing the situation prior to the war, where Japanese American leaders dismissed the possibility of war between the U.S. and Japan. While preparing a translation of Hitler's anti-Japanese writings to be distributed in Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurs. Oka sends a telegram to President Roosevelt offering his services and expresses the desire that Japan lose the war as quickly as possible so that its militarist regime would be brought down; these actions lead to members of the Japanese American community branding him a traitor. He later volunteers to go to India despite his advanced age to write and distribute propaganda for the U.S. After the war, the Japanese community continues to shun him despite the fact that the events …
Searchlight Serenade (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art
- Available
A 2012 documentary film on Japanese American swing dance bands in the World War II concentration camps. Produced by Claire Reynolds for KEET, a Eureka, California, based public television station serving California's northern coast, the hour long documentary debuted on October 30, 2012. The film was funded by grants from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant program, the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program , and the Humboldt Area Foundation (Victor Jacoby Artist Grant).
Stand Up For Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Injustice, Coming of age
- Available
Short film that dramatizes the story of Ralph Lazo , a Los Angeles high school student of Mexican and Irish descent, who voluntarily chose to go to Manzanar to support his Nisei friends and protest the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Nurse (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Hazards of passing judgment
- Available
Short story by Masaharu Hane centering on an Issei man on a train in the Southwest during World War II. Spotting a Nisei young woman fellow passenger—one of the few "Japanese" on the train—sitting next to a white soldier, the narrator passes time on the trip by conjuring various unlikely scenarios that explain her travel circumstances, before learning the rather mundane truth. Originally published in a Poston Japanese language literary publication, "Nurse" was included in the 1991 literary anthology The Big Aiiieeeee!
Nurse of Manzanar: A Japanese American's World War II Journey (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Non Fiction, Memoir
- Displacement, Facing reality, Importance of community, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Role of women
- Available
Edited diary of Toshiko Eto Nakamura (1910–94), a nurse who volunteered to work at the hospital in Manzanar during World War II.
O Furo (The Bath) (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Beauty of simplicity, Fulfillment, Nature as beauty
- Available
Short story by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston about an elderly woman in an unspecified American concentration camp during the World War II. Yuki, a seventy-three year old widow, lives with her grandson, Dixon, a separate barracks room away from the rest of the family. When the falling snow reminds her of Japan, she prevails on Dixon to help her build a Japanese style furo , which they accomplish using scrap lumber and a discarded metal drum. Sitting in the tub, she reflects contentedly on her life.
Old Man River (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, History
- Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Power of silence, Quest for discovery
- Available
Filmed version of Cynthia Gates Fujikawa's one-woman play of the same name about her search to unearth the secrets in the life of her father, actor Jerry Fujikawa. The play premiered in New York in 1997. Gates and documentary film director Allan Holzman filmed her performances during the run of the play in Los Angeles in early 1998. To try to recapture the effect of Fujikawa talking directly to the audience, Holzman positioned cameras on stage that she could talk into and added additional historic photographs and video. Premiering later in 1998, the film version went to play in various film festivals, community screenings and Days of Remembrance in succeeding years. The DVD version of the film also includes Fujikawa's 2003 documentary, Day of Remembrance .
Old Man River (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Power of silence, Quest for discovery
- Available
One-woman play about the playwright's search for the truth about her actor father's life story. Jerry Fujikawa was a successful Nisei actor after World War II who worked steadily in character roles in movies and television and who did well enough to own a home and put three children through college. But after his death in 1983, playwright and performer Cynthia Gates Fujikawa found a picture of her father with a woman who is not her mother and a little girl who looks like her, but is not. Old Man River documents her search for her father's history, in which his wartime incarceration at Manzanar and stint in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team play a key role.
Prisoners and Patriots (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice
- Available
Feature length documentary film on the Santa Fe detention camp. Produced, directed, and written by Neil H. Simon, Prisoners and Patriots is built around interviews of five former Sante Fe inmates, along with inmate family members, others who remember the camp, and those who have studied it. A former broadcast journalist, Simon began the film in 2005 after discovering the camp while working as a reporter in New Mexico. The film premiered in April of 2011 at the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland and was featured in Day of Remembrance related events in 2012 in Sacramento and San Francisco.
Picture Bride (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Historical fiction
- Change versus tradition, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Facing reality, Female roles, Immigrant experience, Importance of community, Will to survive
- Available
The fictional account of a picture bride , from her arrival in the U.S. to the life she and her husband create for themselves with their daughter, to her experience of incarceration during World War II.
Piecing Memories (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past
- Available
Short film about Japanese American senior citizen women in a Japanese American Services of the East Bay (JASEB) quilting class who make a quilt inspired by their World War II experiences. The seventeen minute film was made by Bridge Media for the JASEB and was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
A Century of Change: The Memoirs of Nellie Yae Sumiye Nakamura from 1902 to 2002 (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Death - inevitable or tragedy, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Facing reality, Family - blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Injustice, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Available
The recollections of a Nisei woman, from her childhood in the Santa Clara Valley, to her marriage, her family's incarceration at Santa Anita and Heart Mountain , and their efforts to rebuild their lives back in California after the war ended.
A Girl Like You (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Motherhood, Quest for discovery, Role of women
- Available
Coming-of-age novel by Maureen Lindley that takes place largely in Manzanar and whose protagonist is a mixed-race Sansei girl.
Racial Profiling (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8
- Grades 7-8
- Young Adult
- Evils of racism, Fear of other, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Book for middle schoolers that looks at both sides of the issue of racial profiling. One chapter focuses on the World War II exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Our American Family: The Furutas (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Injustice, Importance of community
- Available
Episode of the television series Our American Family that focuses on a Japanese American family from Southern California. The episode premiered in February 2015.
Our Burden of Shame: Japanese-American Internment During World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Children's, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Book by Susan Sinnott on the wartime forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans intended for a middle-school audience and published by Franklin Watts in 1995.
Out of Infamy: Michi Nishiura Weglyn (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Role of women
- Available
Documentary film profile of Michi Nishiura Weglyn , a Nisei former costume designer and Gila River inmate who wrote the landmark history of the Japanese American exclusion and incarceration, Years of Infamy . The seventeen-minute film, written, produced and directed by Nancy Kapitanoff and Sharon Yamato, includes footage of The Perry Como Show , which Weglyn designed for and also served as a recurring on camera character on, as well as interviews with Weglyn and those who knew her. The film and an associated website were funded in part by grants from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program . Out of Infamy was screened at several film festivals and community events and won a special jury mention at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
Out of the Frying Pan: Reflections of a Japanese American (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Heroism - real and perceived, Injustice
- Available
A prominent journalist reflects on his life and career, including the difficult years during World War II during which he and his family were incarcerated because of their Japanese ancestry.
Dear Miss Breed: Letters from Camp (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Importance of community, Power of words
- Available
Exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) based on the letters sent to librarian Clara Breed by Japanese American students forcibly removed to concentration camps. Dear Miss Breed opened in JANM's Legacy Center gallery on January 14, 1997, and closed on April 13, 1997. A short film of the same name was also featured in the exhibition. Though it did not travel subsequently, an online version of the exhibition was created and is available at the JANM website.
Caught in Between: What to Call Home in Times of War (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Fear of other, Hazards of passing judgment, Importance of community, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Documentary film by Lina Hoshino that looks at parallels between Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11 and at joint activism between the two groups in the months after 9/11.
Changes (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Change versus tradition, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Lost honor, Role of men
- Available
Short story by Marnie Mueller set in an unspecified Japanese American concentration camp. As the story begins, Toru Horokawa, an Issei man, sits outside his barrack thinking about returning to Japan. He flashes back to the time of the exclusion, two years prior, as he and his wife disagree about the selling of their possessions to bargain seekers. He then recalls his recent clashes with his Nisei son, his only child, who has announced that he will be joining the army.
Camp Amache: The Story of an American Tragedy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Will to survive
- Available
A 2006 documentary film by Don Dexter about the American concentration camp located in southwest Colorado, where more than 7,000 Japanese Americans were held during World War II. Amache was one of ten camps established in 1942 to incarcerate over 120,000 Japanese Americans who were forced from their West Coast homes. The film mixes interviews and personal stories with historic and contemporary photos and footage of the camp and surrounding area. Some of the featured stories include journalist Bill Hosokawa , author Gil Asakawa, and John Hopper, a teacher at Granada High School, who has incorporated the story of Amache into his curriculum and started the Amache Preservation Society with his students.
A Hero's Hero (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Documentary film on Nisei draft resister Yosh Kuromiya and his nephew, civil rights activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya, directed by Robert Shoji. The film begins with Shoji's first person narration of meeting Yosh Kuromiya and with scenes of Kuromiya, shot shortly before his 2018 passing, in which he discusses growing up in the San Gabriel Valley before the war and being forcibly removed with his family to the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp, where he was among the young men who resisted the draft, subsequently serving time in prison. The film then follows him to the cemetery, where he visits the resting place of Kiyoshi, while recalling his life of activism. An audio interview of Kiyoshi continues the story of his role in the Civil Rights Movement and as founder of the Critical Path newsletter that provided crucial information about HIV/AIDS. The film ends with Shoji expressing gratitude for having met …
Private Life (book)
- Books
- Historical Fiction
- Facing reality, Identity crisis, Female roles, Disillusionment and dreams
- Available
A middle-aged white woman recounts her friendship with a Japanese American family she first meets through personal tragedy; the injustice they experience, partly as a result of her own husband, leads her to a personal awakening.