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Reflections of Internment: The Art of Hawaii's Hiroshi Honda (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art
- Displacement, Expression through art, Injustice
- No availability
Exhibition of paintings by Hawai'i Kibei artist Hiroshi Honda, most of which depict the various internment and concentration camps he was held in during World War II. The paintings displayed came from a collection discovered and preserved by Honda's son, Ed Honda. Working with an ad hoc committee that included Bill Hoshijo and University of Hawai'i Professor Franklin Odo, the Hondas donated the collection to the Honolulu Academy of Art (HAA) (now the Honolulu Art Museum). With funding from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Reflections of Internment opened at HAA on September 10, 1994, alongside a traveling exhibit, The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942–1945 , a broader survey of art from the concentration camps. An accompanying thirty-three page catalog included essays by Odo and Marcia Morse and color reproductions of nineteen of the artworks; …
Right from Wrong: Learning the Lessons of Honouliuli (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Facing darkness, Rights - individual or societal
- Limited availability
Wayside exhibition produced by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) that debuted in 2011. The sixteen panel exhibition focuses on the Honouliuli detention camp and JCCH's efforts to preserve the site and tell the story of Hawai'i's World War II Japanese American internees. Funding for the exhibition came from a grant from the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program and from the Island Insurance Foundation. JCCH contracted Mo'ili'ili Blind Fish Tank (MBFT) Media to produce the exhibition. Arnold Hiura wrote the exhibition script and Stephen Doi designed and built it.
Hell to Eternity (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- War, Drama
- Evils of racism, Heroism - real or perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Available
Hell to Eternity , directed by Phil Karlson and released in 1960, is a Hollywood war film that dramatizes the real-life story of Guy Gabaldon (played by Jeffrey Hunter), an American Marine who singlehandedly captured over 1,500 Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Island of Saipan during the fighting there in mid-1944. In addition to its portrait of Gabaldon's wartime heroism, Hell to Eternity is notable as the first Hollywood film to portray the wartime confinement of Japanese Americans.
Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Immigration experience, Displacement
- Limited availability
Retrospective exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) featuring the work of Issei artist Henry Sugimoto , who was best known for his depictions of the wartime incarceration experience, many of them executed while he was confined at the Fresno , Jerome , and Rohwer camps. Debuting at JANM in 2001, the exhibition subsequently traveled to Sacramento and to Arkansas.
Hiroshi Honda: Detained (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Evils of racism, Displacement
- No availability
Exhibition featuring the internment art of Hiroshi Honda at the Honolulu Academy of Art (HAA) which ran from June 21 to September 9, 2012. Hiroshi Honda: Detained , was the HAA's second exhibition of Honda's art, after Reflections of Internment: The Art of Hawaii's Hiroshi Honda in 1994. The exhibition included drawings and watercolors produced during Honda's internment in camps in Hawai'i and in the continental U.S. drawn from the HAA's permanent collection.
Mendez v. Westminster: For All the Children (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 3-5
- Children's, Historical Fiction
- Change versus tradition, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
- Limited availability
Children's picture book that tells in simplified form the story of the landmark Mendez case that ultimately ended segregated schools in California. The story is told through the perspective of Sylvia Mendez who is eight years old in 1943. Having rented the farm of Munemitsu family, who had been forcibly removed to concentration camps, they were new to Westminster, California. When she and her brothers are prohibited from attending the same school as her cousins (who can pass as "white") and must attend the inferior school for those of Mexican, African or Asian ancestry, her family decides to sue. With the help of lawyer David C. Marcus—and support from various organizations including the Japanese American Citizens League —the suit proves successful, ending segregation in the state. A brief epilogue notes the long-term impact of the case and the fate of Sylvia and others involved in it.
The Yoke's on Me (film)
- Films and Video
Wartime comedy short subject starring the Three Stooges, whose plot involves in encounter with escapees from "a relocation center." The 79th Three Stooges short, "The Yoke's on Me" was released on May 26, 1944.
Chrysanthemums and Salt (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Importance of community, Self-reliance
- Available
Documentary film by Dianne Fukami on the Japanese American community in San Mateo, California, from its late 1800s origins to the outbreak of World War II. As hinted at by the film's title, Chrysanthemums and Salt largely focuses on two of the major industries that employed Japanese Americans before the war, growing and marketing chrysanthemums and salt companies that took advantage of the region's natural suitability for salt evaporation ponds. The film also covers Japanese American community life, the role of the churches and the outbreak of World War II and the reaction to the subsequent forced removal. Chrysanthemums and Salt is notable for including interviews with several Issei , conducted in Japanese with translated voiceovers. "Host" Jane Yanehiro narrates the film and also appears on camera.
Rosebud (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Desire to escape, Names – power and significance, Role of women, Social mobility
- Available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi that traces the friendship and rivalry between the narrator and another Japanese American girl/woman from childhood in the 1930s through the incarceration period to old age. In the section that takes place at Poston , the narrator works for the Poston Chronicle while Marion is prohibited from working by her overprotective mother until she suffers a nervous breakdown. Later, Marion marries a prominent non-Japanese American economist and largely lives her life outside the ethnic community.
Tachinoki (play)
- Plays
Play by acclaimed playwright Robert Schenkkan based on the life of Sumi Seo, a Nisei who was sixteen when she and her family were forcibly removed from their farm in San Pedro, California, during with World War II and incarcerated at the Santa Anita Assembly Center and the Jerome , Arkansas concentration camp. The play opened in the 1987–88 season of the Ensemble Studio Theater in Hollywood, California and premiered on November 12, 1987. Seo worked closely with Schenkkan and director Heidi Helen Davis in the writing and production of the play. The cast included Diana Tanaka as Seo, Amy Hill and Jim Ishida as her parents, and Darrell Kunitomi as her brother Masa. Director Davis, whose Nisei mother had been incarcerated at Minidoka , described the play as "a combination of Brecht, living newspaper, agitprop, and some dramatic scenes." [1] Playwright Schenkkan later won a Pulitzer Prize for The …
Eyewitness: Stan Honda: Reflections of a Photojournalist (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography
- Expression through art, Facing darkness
- Widely available
Short documentary film about photojournalist Stan Honda, who gained fame for the photographs he took of the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Fighting for Justice: The Coram Nobis Cases (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Documentary film that provides a short overview of the coram nobis cases , based on interviews with attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami and television footage of other key figures.
Legacy of the Nisei: Stories of Japanese American Internment and World War II Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived, Role of men, Injustice, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
The second video produced by the San Leandro Public Library built around interviews with Japanese American veterans and former concentration camp inmates from the San Francisco Bay area.
Molly Donnelly (book)
- Books
- Widely available
Written for younger teen readers (6th-9th grade), Molly Donnelly by Jean Thesman chronicles the life of a young Irish American girl from ages 12 through 16 during World War II in Seattle, Washington. Serving as a subplot of the novel, one of Molly's best friends is her next door neighbor, Emily Tanaka, who along with her family is sent to an incarceration camp for the duration of the war. While on a picnic at the beach on Sunday December 7 with Emily and another friend Louise, Molly's Uncle Charlie suddenly runs up to them to say that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. Emily, who moved to Washington from Honolulu three years prior, still has family in Hawai'i and frantically runs home.
The Pigtail Twins
- Books
- Widely available
Children's book published in 1943 that may have been the first book-length work of fiction to mention the Japanese American exclusion and incarceration, if obliquely. The book was authored by Anne M. Halladay and published by Friendship Press.
Relics from Camp (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Art, History
- Displacement, Injustice
- Available
Art installation by Kristine Yuki Aono that debuted at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in 1996. The installation featured soil collected by the artist at each of the ten War Relocation Authority camp sites installed in shallow 3 x 3 square boxes on the floor with glass over them. At each venue, Aono sought community members who lent personal objects from themselves or other family members who had been in each camp that were installed in that camp's box. The exhibition was viewed by walking on the glass over the boxes.
Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography, Music
- Expression through art, Identity crisis, Power of the past
- Widely available
Feature length musical documentary film that follows singer/songwriter Kishi Bashi as he writes and performs songs from a project inspired by the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Peace Is a Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bombs Brought People of Two Nations Together (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- History
- Forgiveness, Power of the past, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Narrative non-fiction book for middle grade readers about the aftermath of a tragedy involving World War II Japanese balloon bombs centering on Yuzuru John Takeshita, a Kibei man who had been incarcerated at Tule Lake .
displacement (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Graphic novel set in 2016 whose protagonist, sixteen-year-old "Kiku Hughes," begins to experience strange episodes of time travel that take her back to her grandmother's wartime exclusion and incarceration at Tanforan and Topaz . Completely lost at first, "Kiku" comes of age in the concentration camps, making close friends, building community, and enjoying a romance with another teenage girl. Back in the present, she and her mother—who reveals that she has also experienced such episodes of "displacement"—discuss the importance of their family history and the need to use that knowledge to protest on behalf of others.
Nisei (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, Short
- Facing darkness, Family - blessing or curse, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Narrative film about two Nisei brothers that begins with their visit with their Issei father at Tule Lake and follows them to the battlefields of Italy as members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team .
Bad Day at Black Rock (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Thriller
- Evils of racism, Fear of other
- Widely available
Critically acclaimed 1955 movie starring Spencer Tracy whose plot is built around the murder of the Issei father of a Nisei war hero in a forlorn desert town and its subsequent cover up. Though it was one of the first movies to note the discrimination Japanese Americans faced during World War II, no Japanese American characters appear in it. Bad Day at Black Rock was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Heroism - real and perceived, Patriotism - positive side or complications, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Exhibition on Japanese Americans in the military during World War II that was organized by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program in 2004. Undaunted Courage included the stories of the 100th Infantry Battalion , 442nd Regimental Combat Team , and Military Intelligence Service as well as a kiosk featuring stories of Japanese American veterans collected by the Go For Broke National Education Center. The exhibition was one of eight exhibitions in the Little Rock, Arkansas, area that were part of the Life Interrupted project, a collaboration between the Japanese American National Museum and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Three of the exhibitions, all on some aspect of the Japanese American military experience, were displayed at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, the other two being Beyond the Call of Duty: Honoring the 24 Japanese American Medal of Honor Recipients and Witness: Our Brothers' …
U.S. Detention Camps, 1942-1946 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Displacement, Injustice
- No availability
Traveling exhibition organized by the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) that debuted in April 1990. Consisting of ninety framed photographs with captions, text panels, and titles, U.S. Detention Camps was likely the first exhibition to go beyond the story of the ten War Relocation Authority administered camps to include the so-called " assembly centers " as well as the enemy alien detention camps administered by the army and by the Justice Department as a part of the larger story. Aiming, in the words of project directory and NJAHS president Clifford Uyeda , to tell the full story "from the beginning of the experience to the end," the exhibition begins with the anti-Japanese movement and stretches through the Redress Movement , while also depicting inmate resistance, and controversially, suicides. [1] Venues for U.S. Detention Camps included the Jimmy Carter Museum in Atlanta, Georgia; the Swords to Plowshare Gallery in Detroit, …
When the Emperor Was Divine (book)
- Books
- Widely available
Short novel centering on the forced removal and incarceration of a Japanese American family from Berkeley, California, in 1942 and their return to their home after the war. Praised for its spare yet detailed and poignant text that tells each section of the story from the perspective of a different character, the novel received numerous and positive reviews. Educators in particular embraced the book in part for its relevance in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy and fallout. The book has been translated into six languages and has sold more than 250,000 copies.
Witness: Our Brothers' Keepers (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Patriotism - positive side or complications, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived
- No availability
Exhibition on Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans in the military during World War II and their participation in the liberation of Nazi extermination camps organized by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. Witness debuted in on April 20, 1995, in JANM's Legacy Center Gallery to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau. It closed on August 27, 1995. [1]