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333 articles
Beneath the Wide Silk Sky (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Children's, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Loss of innocence
- Widely available
Young adult coming-of-age novel by Emily Inouye Huey set in fictional Linley Island, Washington, in the weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Fugetsu-Do (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Capitalism – effect on the individual, Change versus tradition, Importance of community
- Widely available
Documentary film on the Fugetsu-Do Japanese confectionery shop in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, narrated by third-generation proprietor Brian Kito. Kito discusses the history of the shop that was founded in 1903 by his grandparents, the decision to take over the shop from his Nisei father, his trials and tribulations as the shop owner, the different kinds of manju and mochigashi the store carries, and the hopes for the future of the shop now that his son has expressed a desire to take it over one day. The film also explores the Kito family's wartime incarceration at Heart Mountain and its long-term impact. Filmmaker Kaia Rose shot the film at the shop itself and at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , sometimes using archival footage against the backdrop of contemporary scenes.
This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Everlasting love, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Young adult novel by Andrew Fukuda centering on Alex Maki, a bookish and artistic teenager growing up in a farming family in Bainbridge Island, Washington and his unlikely pen pal relationship with Charlie Lévy, a Jewish teenager growing up in Paris. First assigned to correspond with Charlie as part of a school exercise, Alex is initially disappointed because Charlie was a girl. But they continue to write to each other, and their relationship deepens into a quasi-romantic one as they grow older. World War II sees Alex and his family forcibly removed from their home and sent to Manzanar, while Charlie's family feels growing unease as Nazi occupation approaches. When her letters stop, Alex is moved to volunteer for the army and is eventually sent to Europe as part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion .
The Chessmen (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Capitalism – effect on the individual, Necessity of work, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Short narrative film about Japanese Americans struggling to run a flower nursery set in Northern California in 1949. Based on a short story by Toshio Mori , filmmaker Ken Kokka made the film as a film student at UCLA.
Asian Americans, Episode 2: A Question of Loyalty (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heartbreak of betrayal, Nationalism – complications, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
The second of five episodes of a landmark documentary on the Asian American experience, A Question of Loyalty focuses on the World War II period, telling the story of three Asian American families, two of whom are Japanese American.
In Search of No-No Boy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Widely available
Documentary film on the landmark novel No-No Boy and its author John Okada that includes a profile of Okada (including interviews with his widow and children), the background of the loyalty questionnaire and draft resistance , and the book's rediscovery a decade and a half later. The film includes readings of key scenes by poet Lawson Fusao Inada and dramatizations of them by actors.
Yonsei Eyes (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film that follows young Yonsei siblings Mika & Lee Osaki as they go on a pilgrimage to Tule Lake in 2016, their first trip to the camp in which both of their grandfathers had been held. Mika and Lee's narration of their trip is intercut with interview footage of both grandfathers, Tsukasa Matsueda (1925–2011) and Wayne Osaki (1923–2015).
Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the WWII Internment Camps (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Destruction of beauty, Expression through art, Power of tradition
- Widely available
Documentary film focusing on traditional Japanese performing arts in War Relocation Authority concentration camps during World War II.
Alternative Facts: The Lies of Executive Order 9066 (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heartbreak of betrayal, Injustice, Manipulation, Power and corruption
- Widely available
Documentary film that explores the chain of events that led to Executive Order 9066 and the three Japanese American Supreme Court cases that subsequently challenged the curfew and exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, with a focus on the set of knowingly false claims that proponents of the exclusion used to justify it. Largely following the storyline of Peter Irons ' classic study of the Japanese American Cases, Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment Cases . , filmmaker Jon Osaki uses interviews—with scholars (including Irons), lawyers and activists involved in the coram nobis cases, and descendants of some of the key figures involved in the decision to forcibly remove Japanese Americans—archival audio and video, and historic photos and documents to tell the story. He uses two college-age Japanese Americans (Mika Osaki, the filmmaker's daughter, and Joseph Tsuboi) as a framing device for the story, …
A Song for Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Displacement, Female roles
- Widely available
Dramatic narrative short film directed by Phil Emerson and Kazuko Golden centering on Sachie and Hiroko, two sisters we first meet in Hiroshima as Sachie, the elder, prepares to leave for the U.S. A few years later, Sachie is incarcerated in Manzanar with her husband Yoshizo and two young children and struggles to communicate with Hiroko, who remains in Hiroshima. Her efforts to enlist the help of a guard to send and receive letters to Japan is juxtaposed with Yoshizo's efforts to get the family released to Chicago .
The Japanese American (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of tradition, Social mobility
- Widely available
Short film produced by Handel Film Corporation in 1974 that provides an overview of the Japanese American experience. Almost entirely focusing on the West Coast experience, much of it is devoted to the wartime removal and incarceration.
Guilty by Reason of Race (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Evils of racism, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film produced by NBC and shown nationally on September 19, 1972, as part of the NBC Reports series. It was the second major network documentary on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans after The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame , which aired on CBS in 1965.
Boy from Nebraska (book)
- Books
- Widely available
Brief biography of Ben Kuroki , Nisei war hero, by Ralph G. Martin and published in late 1946 when Kuroki was arguably the best known Japanese American.
Truth of the Matter (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Good versus bad, Injustice, Manipulation
- Widely available
Short film by Steve Nagano that juxtaposes the rosy portrayal of the roundup and incarceration of Japanese Americans as presented by the 1942 film Japanese Relocation produced by the War Relocation Authority and Office of War Information with testimony by Japanese Americans from the Los Angeles hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in 1981. The film cuts back and forth between clips from Japanese Relocation and testimony that directly contradicts the claims espoused in the film. The final clip, from Grace Nakamura, emphasizes that such a mass roundup and incarceration could happen again.
Rabbit in the Moon (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Injustice, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Documentary film written and directed by Emiko Omori and produced by Omori with her sister Chizuko on Japanese Americans in American concentration camps during World War II that highlights resistance and other lesser told stories. Winner of many awards and screened nationally on public television in 1999, Rabbit in Moon has become one of the most acclaimed and widely viewed feature length documentaries on this topic.
Evergreen (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Facing darkness, Power of the past, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara set in postwar Los Angeles and sequel to Clark and Division (2021).
Harusame Spring Rain (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Disillusionment and dreams, Heartbreak of betrayal, Losing hope
- Widely available
Narrative short film by Jose De Vega set during World War II centering on Naomi, a young Nisei dancer, whose bitterness about her wartime exclusion and incarceration saps her love of dance. In an unnamed American concentration camp, she encounters a child who dreams of becoming a professional dancer and who asks Naomi to teach her.
Fort Sill Protest (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Video documentary of the 2019 Fort Sill protest coordinated on June 22, 2019, by a coalition of progressive organizations including Tsuru for Solidarity, American Indian Movement (AIM) Indian Territory, Dream Action Oklahoma, Black Lives Matter OKC, and the Autonomous Brown Berets. This documentary includes interviews with activists, community members, and former incarcerees; news coverage of the event; highlights of speeches from the protest; and footage of their interactions with the military police. Speakers and interviewees highlight the significance of Fort Sill as a historic site of oppression, first with Native Americans imprisoned in a boarding school and prison camp, then as an incarceration site for Japanese Americans during WWII, and most recently as a detainment center for immigrant and refugee children. The documentary connects the incarceration of Japanese Americans with current immigration detention policies that have led to the separation of children from their families. The film urges solidarity amongst …
The Bracelet (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Children's
- Growing up – pain or pleasure, Importance of community, Self-awareness, Will to survive
- Widely available
A children's picture book by Nisei author Yoshiko Uchida , with illustrations by Joanne Yardley, originally published in 1993. The Bracelet is a story derived from the author's own childhood experiences in an American concentration camp during World War II. The book opens as seven-year-old Emi, her mother and sister prepare to leave their home in Berkeley, California, for Tanforan , a racetrack that has been converted into a temporary camp for Japanese Americans. Emi's best friend, Laurie Madison, brings her a gold bracelet as a farewell gift, and as a reminder of the value of their friendship. Emi vows that she will never take it off, but as she helps clean out the filthy horse stable that will serve has her family's "apartment," the gold chain slips off her wrist and is lost. At first, she is desolate, but Emi eventually realizes that she does not need the bracelet …
Yae Wada: 45 Years of Anger (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Video documentary produced by "What Does It Mean To Be American?" as part of the Mineta Legacy Project, which features an interview with former Japanese American incarceree, Yae Wada . [1] At the age of 99, Wada recounts her memories of being placed in concentration camps during World War II, and how she overcame her anger towards the experience.
Blue Jay in the Desert (book)
- Books
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Children's, Picture book
- Quest for discovery, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Blue Jay in the Desert by Marlene Shigekawa and illustrated by Isao Kikuchi is a children's picture book about how the gift of a hand-carved wooden blue jay symbolizes the love and hope a grandfather gives to his grandson.
History and Memory (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Experimental
- Injustice, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Experimental documentary film by Rea Tajiri that explores the collective memory of Japanese American incarceration through the act of remembering and forgetting. History and Memory (1991) has been frequently studied by academics and film critics for its cultural impact on the topic of Japanese American incarceration and memory.
Two Homelands (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Death – inevitable or tragedy, Emptiness of attaining a false dream, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Nationalism – complications, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Vulnerability of the strong
- Widely available
Epic three volume novel by best-selling Japanese novelist Toyoko Yamasaki that centers on the identity dilemmas of a Kibei man during and immediately after World War II. Published in Japan in 1983, it was adapted into a popular Japanese television drama the following year. Alarmed by reports that the novel/TV show portrayed Japanese Americans as having split loyalties, Japanese American leaders succeeded in preventing the TV drama from being shown in the continental U.S. In 2007, the University of Hawai'i Press published an English language translation by V. Dixon Morris under the title Two Homelands .
Journey to Topaz: A Story of the Japanese-American Evacuation (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8
- Grades 6-8
- Children's, Young Adult
- Displacement, Growing up - pain or pleasure
- Widely available
Pioneering 1971 novel by Yoshiko Uchida that was the first book for children on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans written by a Japanese American. Based in part on Uchida's own family experience, Journey to Topaz was the first of five books the prolific children's book author wrote that focused on the incarceration experience.
Act of Faith: The Rev. Emery Andrews Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Love and sacrifice
- Widely available
Documentary film on Rev. Emery Andrews , a Baptist priest who went beyond the call of duty to aid Japanese Americans from Seattle incarcerated at the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp.