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413 articles
442: For the Future (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Limited availability
Docu-drama by Patricia Kinaga that tells the story of the Japanese American World War II experience with a focus on the exploits of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , through the experiences of four characters.
Allegiance (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction, Mystery
- Emptiness of attaining a false dream, Facing darkness, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Power and corruption
- Widely available
Historical mystery novel by Kermit Roosevelt set during World War II against the backdrop of the Supreme Court and the Japanese American cases.
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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
A Circle of Freedom: Lost and Restored (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Importance of community
- Limited availability
Exhibition at the History Museum of Hood River County on the Japanese American experience in Hood River, Oregon. Instigated by Museum Coordinator Connie Nice once she learned of the of the wartime incarceration of local Japanese Americans and the particularly virulent opposition to their postwar return, the exhibition has the support of the local community. The small exhibition included four sections: "Our Lives Before," "Our Lives Removed," " Our Lives in Camp," and "Our Lives in Service." Included in the exhibition are documents from the local American Legion chapter, which made national headlines in 1944 when it removed the names of Nisei soldiers from a local "roll of honor." The exhibition subsequently became a semi-permanent part of the museum.
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.
Adios to Tears: The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S. Concentration Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, Memoir
- Displacement, Immigrant Experience
- Widely available
Adios to Tears: The Memoirs of a Japanese-Peruvian Internee in U.S. Concentration Camps relays the life story of Seiichi Higashide (1909–97). The book was translated from Japanese into English and Spanish through the efforts of his eight children, and was first published in 1993 by E&E Kudo. A second edition of the book was published in 2000 by the University of Washington Press, with a new foreword by C. Harvey Gardiner, professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University and author of Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese and the United States ; a new epilogue by Julie Small, co-chair of Campaign for Justice-Redress Now for Japanese Latin Americans; and, a new preface by Elsa H. Kudo, the author's eldest daughter.
After Silence: Civil Rights and the Japanese American Experience (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Patriotism - complications, Fear of other, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Documentary film that focuses on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, Washington , as recounted through the perspective of Dr. Frank Kitamoto, who was a child during World War II. The story is told through interaction between Kitamoto and a small group of high school students from Bainbridge High School as they develop archival photographs from the incarceration and discuss its relevance to post 9/11 America. The film ends with the 2002 dedication of a memorial and plaque marking the site of the Bainbridge Islanders' departure. After Silence was produced by the Bainbridge Island Historical Society as part of an exhibition on the community's World War II experience, with funding from the Washington State Civil Liberties Public Education Program and the Charles W. Gaugl Foundation.
An American Story: The History of California's Nisei Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Short documentary on California's Nisei veterans produced by photographer Tom Graves. The video was funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
An American Christmas (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Working class struggles
- Available
Short story by Alice Nash centering on an elderly Issei woman in contemporary New York. As she struggles to carry a bag of rice home to her apartment, she reflects on her arrival in New York with her late husband after leaving the concentration camp and the kind Yamaguchi family who put them up while refusing to take money from them. They eventually opened a cleaning shop that helped pay for their only son's college education. A successful businessman in California, the son takes her on a trip every year, but largely keeps her away from her grandchildren due to his white wife's discomfort with her. When she gets back to her apartment, the family of the building's supervisor, the Gonzalez family, invites her to their home to help decorate their Christmas tree.
The Ancestors' Box (play)
- Plays
Play for children by Christina Hamlett that takes place during and after World War II and explores the wartime expulsion and incarceration of Japanese Americans. The play centers on Japanese American teenager Amy Sasaki, who is sent to an unspecified American concentration camp with her family, and her best friend Lily Danvers, a white teenager who stays behind. The play's scenes take play just prior to the Sasakis leaving for camp from their home in Anaheim, California, in 1942, upon their return in 1945, and in 2000. The estimated length of a performance is 35 minutes.
American Pastime (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, History, Sport
- Widely available
A 2007 feature film directed by Desmond Nakano that is based on true events that occurred at Topaz , an American concentration camp in Utah which held thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. The film's story focuses on the Nomura family, whose mother and father are both Issei , and their two Nisei children, Lane and Lyle. Following the signing of Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, the Nomuras, along with over 120,000 other Japanese living on the West Coast, are forced into desolate government camps across the country. To boost the morale of the younger inmates and help build a sense of community, Mr. Nomura, who was once a professional baseball player, forms an in-camp league within the concentration camp, in an attempt to to instill some sense of normality into their lives.
American Sons (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Empowerment, Evils of racism, Quest for discovery, Role of men
- Widely available
Docudrama by Steven Okazaki about four Asian American male characters talking about the role of race in their lives. Though played by actors, the words spoken by each character come from interviews with real people.
"Iwao-chan!" (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Everlasting love, Motherhood
- No availability
Short story by Yachiyo Uehara about a Nisei woman's bond with her deceased Issei mother in the years after the war. As the story begins, Yachiyo is on a plane from New York to San Francisco around 1950 with her two-year-old son Andy, the first time since the war years that she would be returning to her hometown. She will be moving there, initially staying with her Issei father. She is saddened that Andy will never meet her mother, whom she last saw in 1944 when she left Heart Mountain for New York and who subsequently died after they returned to San Francisco. She is relieved that her father, who dislikes children, tolerates Andy and even seems to like him. But she is also concerned about the dangerous stairs leading to the small house. She finds that despite her death two years prior, her mother's presence permeates the house. One …
America at its Best: Legacy of Two Nisei Patriots (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Documentary film produced and directed by Vince Matsudaira that highlights events honoring the two Medal of Honor recipients from the Seattle area, William Nakamura and James Okubo in 2001. The video was produced by the Nakamura/Okubo Medal of Honor Committee of the Nisei Veterans Committee, Seattle.
America's Betrayal (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8
- Fiction, History
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Everlasting love, Evils of racism, Female roles, Losing hope, Will to survive
- Limited availability
Young adult novel by Jodi Icenoggle written in the first person voice of Margaret Yamaguchi, a high school sophomore and aspiring writer in Valle Verde in coastal California. Her father runs a successful orchard and oversees a happy family that includes Margaret's mother, an older brother Robert, and younger brother Timmy. She has also started going steady with John Wilson, star athlete of Valle Verde High. But her happy life is slowly torn apart by the outbreak of war. As anti-Japanese sentiment rises after the attack on Pearl Harbor, so do tensions at the high school, particularly for an interracial couple like John and Margaret. Inevitably, the Yamaguchis get sent first to the Salinas Assembly Center , then to Poston , while John gets drafted. As family tragedies ensue, Margaret comes of age in the concentration camp, starting a camp newspaper and waiting for John to come back. But will …
American (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, War
- Heroism – real and perceived, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Short narrative film starring George Takei as a Nisei veteran and Japanese American National Museum docent named Clinton Nakamoto. While on duty one day at the museum, he meets a woman with a young daughter and starts to give them a tour. The woman mentions that her grandfather had fought in the "422" and shows Clinton a picture of him on her phone. The picture sends Clinton back to the 1942, recalling his anger at the forced removal and later of serving in the 442nd with the grandfather, who was killed in the rescue of the Lost Battalion . He takes her to visit the Go for Broke memorial, where they find his name on it. On the way home on the bus, he strikes up a friendship with a young Muslim boy.
American at Heart (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Film that tells the story of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team through historical footage (including clips from the movie Go for Broke! ), still photographs and interview with many Nisei veterans, their white commanders, and others tied to the story. American at Heart covers the origin of the units in Hawai'i and Washington, DC, basic training in Camps McCoy and Shelby, their experiences in combat in Europe, and their return to the Hawai'i and the continental U.S. after the war. The film also contrasts the experience of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i vs. those on the West Coast, outlining the mass forced removal and incarceration of the latter. Among those interviewed are General Mark Clark , the World War II commander of the Fifth Army and 15th Army Group in Europe, who discusses what he calls "the wrong decision" to send Japanese Americans to "concentration camps" and …
And Then They Came for Us (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Expression through art, Power of the past, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Documentary film that provides an overview of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans while drawing explicit parallels to agitation against Arab Americans in the early months of the Trump Administration.
And There Are Stories, There Are Stories (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Coming of age, Power of the past, Self – inner and outer
- Available
Prose poem memoir by Momoko Iko that traces her family's journey out of the concentration camps and her subsequent upbringing away from Japanese American communities on the West Coast. She begins with her birth in 1940 to Issei parents, her fleeting recollections of her family's incarceration, and life after the war, first in Philadelphia, then Chicago . Various stories centering on racism, racial identity, interracial relations, and the legacy of the camps in the 1950s and 1960s follow, tracing the narrator's journey to becoming a writer.
A Tradition of Honor (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism – real and perceived, Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Feature length documentary telling the stories of Japanese American soldiers in the 100th Infantry Battalion , 442nd Regimental Combat Team , and Military Intelligence Service , produced in 2002 by the Go For Broke National Education Foundation.
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 …
An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, History
- Empowerment, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Quest for power, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film that profiles Nisei politician Norman Mineta with a particular focus on his childhood years in an American concentration camp and his role forty years later in the Redress movement .