Browse > Genre > Memoir
79 articles
Dandelion Through the Crack/Kiyo's Story (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Memoir by a Nisei woman of farm life in Sacramento, her family's wartime incarceration, and their struggles to reestablish their lives after the war.
The Crystal City Story: One Family's Experience with the World War II Japanese Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Reunion
- Available
Self-published memoir by Tomo Izumi about her family's internment in the Crystal City, Texas , internment camp and her life before and after the war in a small plantation town on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Facing darkness, Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of words
- Widely available
Family Torn Apart is the story of the wartime experiences of Otokichi Muin Ozaki, an Issei who was a Japanese language school teacher, tanka poet, and a leader within the Japanese community in Hilo, Hawai'i. While most incarceration accounts focus on the mainland experience of the English-speaking Nisei who comprised nearly two-thirds of the incarcerated population, Ozaki's story provides insight into the incarceration experience of Hawai'i island Japanese, many of whom authorities detained at mainland incarceration sites. While this book includes radio scripts of Ozaki's incarceration experience and his own accounts of camp news, it is also comprised of letters that family and friends wrote responding to his correspondence. The variety and frequency of these letters and other sources provide intimate details of Ozaki's incarceration that lasted nearly four years. This story highlights the uniqueness of the Hawai'i experience from the perspective of an Issei observer and the impact of …
Farewell to Manzanar Educational Kit (curricula)
- Curricula
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Memoir, Drama, History
- Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Injustice, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Power of the past
- Limited availability
In 2003, the Farewell to Manzanar Education Initiative distributed 10,000 copies of the Farewell to Manzanar Educational Kit to California public schools and public libraries. The kit consists of the book, Farewell to Manzanar and Related Readings (1998), a teaching guide for the book (1998), a VHS cassette of the Farewell to Manzanar made-for-television movie (1976) with an additional 35-minute classroom version, and a video study guide (2002). Separate elements of the kit are available for purchase (except for the video study guide).
Dusty Exile: Looking Back at Japanese Relocation during World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Role of women, Progress – real or illusion
- Available
Memoir of the forced removal and incarceration and its aftermath by a sympathetic white schoolteacher at Poston .
Dear Miye: Letters Home from Japan, 1939-1946 (book)
- Books
- Memoir, Historical nonfiction
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Desire to escape, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Female roles, Identity crisis, Immigrant experience, Isolation, Loss of innocence, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Self-preservation, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Will to survive
- Available
A collection of letters written by a young Nisei woman in Japan who becomes stuck there during World War II to her best friend who is still in California.
Enemy Alien (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Displacement, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
Bilingual memoir by Kiyo Hirano of her World War II experiences as an "enemy alien" is a rare example of an Issei woman's first-person perspective of the American concentration camps. Enemy Alien (Japanese title: Tekikoku gaijin) was translated into English by George Hirano and Yuri Kageyama and published by Japantown Arts and Media Workshop (JAM) Publications in 1983. Hirano's Japanese-English biographical account of her incarceration at the Merced Assembly Center and Amache and of her resettlement was originally written as an assignment for a creative writing class at the Japantown Arts and Media Workshop in San Francisco, and eventually published by the organization.
Ganbatte: Sixty-year Struggle of a Kibei Worker (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Capitalism - effect on the individual, Convention and rebellion, Empowerment, Important of community, Injustice, Rights - individual and societal, Self-awareness, Working class struggles
- Available
Kibei - Nisei labor organizer and communist shares his life story, including his unique experiences during World War II as the husband of a white woman with a mixed-race child incarcerated while he served with the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific Theater.
Gasa Gasa Girl Goes to Camp (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir, Art
- Coming of age, Expression through art, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Oppression of women
- Widely available
Concentration camp memoir by a Nisei artist. Ten years old at the time of the wartime incarceration, Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey was sent to Santa Anita Assembly Center and Amache with her older brother and Issei parents. Evolving from captions that accompanied displays of the author's postwar paintings, Gasa Gasa Girl intersperses stories of life in the camps with recollections of happier days with her parents, brother, and aunts in Hollywood, California, before the war. The book is illustrated by twenty-eight color reproductions of her watercolor paintings that depict both her external and internal lives during the war, as well as a like number of family photographs, archival photographs, and photographs of key objects mentioned in the text. Published by the University of Utah Press, the book includes an foreword by historian Cherstin Lyon.
"Wase Time!": A Teen's Memoir of Gila River Internment Camp (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Role of men
- Limited availability
First person memoir by Kenneth A. Tashiro of his and his family's forced removal and incarceration at the Gila River , Arizona, concentration camp. After a brief introduction that introduces Tashiro's family, the story begins on Pearl Harbor day when Kenneth—nicknamed "Iggy"—hears about the start of the war after exiting an Abbott and Costello movie. He and his family move from Los Angeles to Del Rey in an attempt to avoid incarceration, but they are eventually removed from Sanger to Gila in August of 1942. His father, Kenji Tashiro, is a journalist, who becomes the editor of the camp newspaper , before leaving to join the army at age 37. His mother, eight months pregnant at the time of the removal, stays behind for a time, rejoining the family later with the baby girl. Twelve when he entered the camp, Tashiro's perspective is purely that of an active teenager, so …
39 Months at Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Empowerment, Importance of community, Injustice
- Available
The diary of a white staff member at Tule Lake offers his take on the tumultuous events there after it was made a segregation center .
A Stone Cried Out: The True Story of Simple Faith in Difficult Days
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Change versus tradition, Faith versus doubt, Forgiveness, Identity crisis, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice
- Available
A Christian minister reflects on his life, including the difficult years he and his family spent in wartime concentration camps.
A Taste for Strawberries: The Independent Journey of Nisei Farmer Manabi Hirasaki (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Available
The memoir of Manabi Hirasaki , a successful Nisei farmer, with reflections on experiences ranging from his childhood working on his father's farms, his family's " voluntary evacuation " to Grand Junction, Colorado, voluntary service in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , and his successes in the strawberry industry after World War II.
Reluctant Samurai: Memoirs of an Urban Planner (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Family – blessing or curse, Fulfillment, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
- Limited availability
Memoir by a Nisei man that recounts his agricultural upbringing, his time in American concentration camps, and his postwar career as an urban planner who was a key figure in the redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles.
Stanley Hayami, Nisei Son (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Book built around the wartime diary and letters of Stanley Hayami that document his incarceration at the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp and his military service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team .
Starting from Loomis (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Injustice
- Widely available
Autobiographical short story by Hiroshi Kashiwagi that traces his life from his childhood on farms in the Loomis, California, area, his family's forced removal and incarceration at the Marysville Assembly Center (which Kashiwagi refers to as "Arboga," an alternative name) and Tule Lake , and his decision to answer "no-no" to the loyalty questionnaire both out of anger and protest and in alignment with the rest of his family. While describing the difficult conditions of concentration camp life, the narrator—who was two years out of high school at the time—takes his first tentative steps in the world of theater and literature while in camp. His father's absence from the family from prior to the war due to tuberculosis looms large. Written from the perspective of an old man looking back at his youth, the story ends with the lifelong ramifications of his wartime incarceration and his "no-no boy" status.
Starting from Loomis and Other Stories (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Power of the past
- Widely available
Memoir by playwright, poet, actor, and librarian Hiroshi Kashiwagi in the form of twenty-five stories, most of them first-person vignettes from various periods of his life. Edited by Tim Yamamura, Starting from Loomis was published by the University of Colorado Press in 2013 as part of the George and Sakaye Aratani Nikkei in the Americas Series.
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 …
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.
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 …
Swimming in the American: A Memoir and Selected Writings (book)
- Books
- Adult
- Adult
- Memoir, Poetry
- Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Wisdom of experience, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Memoir by Nisei playwright Hiroshi Kashiwagi (1922–2019) told in short prose vignettes, poetry and a play.
Unfinished Message (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Motherhood
- Available
Seemingly autobiographical story by Toshio Mori about his mother and brother. The story begins in 1945 in Topaz , where the author's mother can't sleep one night because of anxiety about her son, who is serving in Europe. She later finds out that he was wounded in battle that night. Later, they arrange for his transfer to a hospital in the U.S, deciding on one near the family home in California. When they leave camp and return home, she is able to visit him at the hospital. However, she later dies in her sleep before her son is released. After her death, the author and his brother hear tapping on the window of the room in which she died, which they interpret as her message to them. Written by Mori in 1947, the story was first published in his 1979 short story collection, The Chauvinist and Other Stories and reprinted …
Uncle Yozo (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Disillusionment and dreams, Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly
- No availability
Comical story by Ted Tajima about an Issei man at an unspecified concentration camp who enlivens the first Christmas in camp by elaborately playing Santa. A regular contributor of stories to the Rafu Shimpo holiday edition, Tajima taught at Alhambra High for 35 years and led their acclaimed journalism program.
To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Importance of community, Love and sacrifice
- Widely available
Famous actor and celebrity recounts some of the most important periods of his life, including his early childhood spent at Rohwer and Tule Lake concentration camps.
We the People: A Story of Internment in America (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of women
- Available
Memoir of Florin, California-based Nisei educator and activist Mary Tsukamoto co-authored by Elizabeth Pinkerton and published in 1987 when Tsukamoto was seventy-two. Though the book covers her entire life, well over half of it focuses on her and her family's wartime confinement, their resettlement in the Midwest, and eventual return to California.