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The Magic of Ordinary Days (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, Romance
Beauty of simplicity, Love and sacrifice, Role of women
Available

Made-for-television movie under the Hallmark Hall of Fame banner about the arranged marriage of an educated urban woman carrying an illegitimate child and a kindly farmer. The film includes a subplot about a friendship between the woman and two Japanese American sisters from Amache who are among the farmworkers.

Makapuu Bay (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Disillusionment and dreams, Facing reality, Lost love, Names – power and significance, Reunion
Widely available

Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a divorced middle-aged Japanese American writer who goes to a literary conference in Honolulu where she runs into an old boyfriend from the war years. In flashback, we learn that Sachiko—nicknamed "Pinky" while incarcerated in Poston with her father—had met Mitch Ochiai at the camp swimming hole, where she asked him to teach her to swim. They become a couple and continue to see each other when she resettles in Chicago while he attends the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Minnesota. But her father's illness—and eventual death—forces her to return to Poston, while Mitch heads off to war, and they lose touch. Sachiko ends up marrying Joe Noda, her block manager, and settling in Los Angeles. Though Sachiko is divorced and Mitch has never married, a rekindling of the romance in Hawai'i is not to be.

Manzanar (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Limited availability

Experimental documentary film by Bob Nakamura made in 1971 that was one of the first films to explore the legacy of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Manzanar and Beyond (book)

Books
Memoir
Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Importance of community, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
Available

Prominent Nisei attorney recounts his life, including his experiences as the administrator of the hospital at Manzanar concentration camp and his role in landmark legal battles advocating for redressing injustices experienced by Japanese Americans.

Manzanar Fishing Club (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Desire to escape
Available

Feature length documentary film on Manzanar inmates who temporarily escaped from the confines of the camp to fish in the nearby streams and mountains. In addition to interviews with former inmate fishermen (and women) and archival images, The Manzanar Fishing Club also tells its story using animation and recreated scenes with actors. The film had a limited theatrical release in April 2012 and was released on DVD on October 30, 2012. It was funded in part by grants from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant program .

Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Capitalism – effect on the individual, Displacement, Man against nature
Available

Documentary film on Manzanar that focuses on the region's relationship with water and with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns much of the land and water rights in the area. The film also juxtaposes the forced removal of Japanese Americans to Manzanar with the forced removal of Native Americans from the Manzanar area in the 19th Century. The film also looks at the contemporary water related issues that saw Japanese Americans, Native Americans, and local white environmentalists come together. Much of the Japanese American perspective comes from Sue Kunitomi Embrey , the co-founder of the Manzanar Committee , and her family.

Manzanar: Story of an American Family (play)

Plays

Musical play centering on the experiences of the Shimada family, following them from their San Pedro, California, home to the Santa Anita Assembly Center and to Manzanar , told through the eyes of twelve-year-old protagonist Margaret. The play was co-written by Dan Taguchi and Rus McCoy and loosely based on the experiences of Taguchi's mother, who was a child at Manzanar. Various versions of the play have been featured in readings and performances since 2002, but there has been no full production of the play to date.

Mary Osaka, I Love You (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Everlasting love, Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications
Widely available

Short story by acclaimed writer John Fante about the love between a Filipino American immigrant man and a Nisei woman that takes place in Los Angeles as World War II breaks out. A part of Fante's intended novel on Filipino Americans, it was first published in Good Housekeeping magazine in October 1942.

Matsumi Kanemitsu: A Japanese American Artist (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art
Limited availability

Short profile of artist Matsumi "Mike" Kanemitsu that includes his own thoughts about his techniques and goals as an artist. Narrator Amy Hill provides a brief outline of his life and work accompanied by many photographs and the music of Miles Davis. His World War II experience as a Kibei in the U.S. Army is largely passed over to focus on his postwar art career.

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 …

Medal of Honor (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Heroism - real and perceived
Widely available

Short video on the twenty-one Japanese American recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor , produced by the Go For Broke National Education Center and that features footage from June 21, 2000 ceremony at which twenty of the medals were awarded.

Meeting at Tule Lake (film)

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

Documentary film produced and directed by Scott T. Tsuchitani that features interviews with seven former Tule Lake inmates talking about life in the camp, the "loyalty questionnaire" and segregation, and the importance of remembering, intercut with footage of poet Hiroshi Kashiwagi reading the title poem and of a Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Meeting at Tule Lake was produced by the Tule Lake Committee for the 1994 Tule Lake Pilgrimage.

Memories of Pop (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Family – blessing or curse, Forgiveness
No availability

Short story by Jiro Saito about a young college dropout Sansei returning home to San Diego for the funeral of his estranged father. Written in the first person voice of Mas Mayeda, it is set in around 1960. As the story begins, Mas gets a call from his sister Rose informing him of their father's death. Disowned by his father after dropping out of UC Berkeley's engineering program to become a writer, Mas had not seen the family in three years. Upon his return, Rose tells him that their father, though stubborn, indicated that he wanted Mas to return. Before the funeral, Mas sees old family photos that tell their story: his parents' wedding in 1927 (his Issei father married a Nisei woman from San Diego); a successful farm; his father becoming a community leader; his father's subsequent arrest after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the family's removal and …

Memories of the Camps (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Circle of life, Power of the past, Injustice
Limited availability

Locally produced documentary by Los Angeles TV station KABC that provides an overview of the concentration camps and community efforts to remember them on their fiftieth anniversary. Hosted by KABC news anchor Joanne Ishimine, the program begins at Heart Mountain where former inmate and camp historian Bacon Sakatani gives a tour of the camp and talks about his experience and the larger impact of incarceration. The next segment is on Manzanar , focusing on Toyo Miyatake and his photographs, featuring an interview with his son Archie. The last segments focus on the commemoration of the camps: a visit to a UCLA class that Sakatani speaks to and interviews with the students; some of those same students at the 50th anniversary Manzanar Pilgrimage ; and visits to the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and Japanese American National Museum in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. A copy of the …

Midway (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, War
War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Available

Epic war movie that tells the story of the Battle of Midway, the turning point of the Pacific War, from both the American and Japanese perspectives. Made for a modest budget despite its all-star cast, Midway was successful at the box office. In addition to employing many Japanese American actors in the roles of Japanese naval officers, the movie has a subplot involving the internment/incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Miss Minidoka 1943 (play)

Plays

Two-act musical comedy play set in Minidoka that follows the preparations for a camp beauty contest. The play's timeline parallels that of an actual beauty contest at the camp in January and February 1943, a time that also saw the loyalty questionnaire and the call for volunteers for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . The book for the play was written by Seattle attorney Gary Iwamoto, with music and lyrics contributed by Iwamoto along with Richard Lewis, Lisa Pan, Erin Flory, Diane Wong, Ken Kubota, Stan Asis, Masaye Okano Nakagawa, and Brian Higham.

Mission in Manila: The Sakakida Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Facing darkness, Forgiveness, Heroism – real and perceived, Will to survive
Limited availability

Documentary film that tells the story of Richard Sakakida , a Nisei intelligence agent in the Philippines who is captured and tortured by the Japanese during World War II and who confronts—and forgives—his torturers after the war. The film is based almost entirely on an interview with Sakakida, augmented by narrator Jerry Kay, archival footage and family photographs, and illustrations by Roberta Twidwell. The 28-minute film was produced by the Military Intelligence Service and the National Japanese American Historical Society for the Military Intelligence Service Fellowship Program.

Mitsugi's Christmas (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Family – blessing or curse, Forgiveness, Love and sacrifice, Optimism – power or folly
No availability

Short story by Jennifer "Emiko" Kuida about Mitsugi Yamamoto, an elderly widower at the Keiro Retirement Home in Los Angeles who waits to hear from his busy lawyer daughter and his grandchildren on Christmas Day. Julia, a younger Yonsei volunteer nurse, keeps him company sometimes and listens to his stories of the past, particularly his time at Seabrook Farms, New Jersey , where he and his wife Sumi moved after leaving Manzanar .

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.

Months of Waiting, 1942-1945 (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Art, History
Expression through Art, Displacement, Injustice
No availability

The first group exhibition of art created in the wartime concentration camps. Produced by the California Historical Society in 1972 as a companion to its Executive Order 9066 photographic exhibition, Months of Waiting toured several venues from 1972 to 1974.

Most Honorable Son (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, Biography
War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real or perceived
Available

Documentary film that profiles Nisei war hero Ben Kuroki , tracing his life from his Nebraska childhood, his fight to be allowed to serve in the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his bombing missions over Europe and Japan, and his visits to American concentration camps in which Japanese Americans were held. Kuroki tells much of the story in his own words, which are augmented by many interviews with crew members who flew with him in both Europe and Japan. In addition to archival footage and photographs, the filmmakers also film reenactments of a few key episodes. Among the incidents highlighted are the dramatic raid on the Ploesti oilfields in what is now Romania, one of Kuroki's last missions in Europe; his speech before the Commonweath Club in San Francisco upon his return; and his visit to the Heart Mountain concentration camp of which inmates Eiichi Sakauye, Jack Tono, …

Moving Day (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, History
Evils of racism, Power of the past, Injustice
No availability

UCLA student film that dramatizes the wartime eviction of a Japanese American farming family. Silent scenes of a family of five (presumably two Issei parents and their three Nisei children) eating, packing their possessions, making musubi for the voyage, and other preparations for removal are accompanied by first-person narration by a female voice, presumably the daughter of the family. The film begins with the words of John DeWitt read in his voice justifying the need for the forced removal of Japanese Americans. The film ends with a coda about the passage of time and how many have forgotten—or have never known about—the events depicted. Moving Day is one of the first—if not the first—film by a Japanese American that depicts the travails of World War II.

Moving Walls: American Nightmare to American Dream (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Power of the past, Working class struggles
Widely available

Documentary film about the enduring impact of the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp—in particular, its surviving barracks—on both the local Wyoming population and on Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated there.

Roy Sato, New Neighbor (book)

Books
Widely available

Children's book published in 1955 centering on Roy Sato, a ten-year-old Sansei , in the months after his move from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles to a nearby suburban area. Despite its descriptions of racism and its publication just ten years after the end of World War II, the book makes no mention of the wartime exclusion and confinement of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, presumably including the Sato family.

Ruth Asawa: Of Forms and Growth (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Nature as beauty, Role of women
Available

Documentary profile of Nisei artist Ruth Asawa produced and directed by Robert Snyder. Of Forms and Growth includes footage of Asawa at home, in her garden and at work, and features the artist talking about her artistic influences and techniques. In particular, she highlights the influence of artists Joseph Albers and Buckminster Fuller, and the film includes footage of Asawa and Fuller. She goes on to talk about the various media she has worked with, including ink and oil paintings, wire and paper sculptures, and sculptures made from baker's clay. The film also explores Asawa's community work, particularly in establishing art programs in schools as well as a community arts festival. Photographer Imogen Cunningham talks about photographing Asawa and her family and about Asawa's marriage to Albert Lanier. Asawa's early life—including her wartime incarceration—is covered only briefly, and her later work that is influenced by Japanese American history is not …

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