Browse > Interest Level > Adult
536 articles
Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature length documentary film that traces the basketball exploits of Wat Misaka, a Nisei from Utah who starred on two college basketball national championship teams and played briefly for the New York Knicks in the 1940s.
The Travelers (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Desire to escape, Optimism – power or folly, Power of silence
- Widely available
Short story by Toshio Mori centering on two groups of inmates as they leave Topaz . One group of nine are those leaving the camp permanently to " resettle " in areas outside the restricted area of the West Coast; the other group consists of those who are visiting town briefly to shop or to see off relatives before returning to the camp. Those leaving for good includes a soldier leaving for the battlefront and being seen off by his mother, as well as those leaving for jobs in cities such as New York and Chicago . As the resettlers exchange information about their destinations, the soldier is drawn to an attractive young woman heading to Chicago, but does not speak to her. After the train leaves, a white family offers a ride to town to the mother of the soldier. "The Travelers" originally appeared in the Topaz literary publication …
A Tribute to Ruth Asawa (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Power of the past
- Widely available
Short documentary film on artist Ruth Asawa by Dianne Fukami. Released shortly after Asawa's death in August 2013, the film incorporates interview footage from Fukami's earlier 2008 film Ruth Asawa: Community Artist .
Tsuru (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Desire to escape, Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Will to survive
- Widely available
Short dramatic film about an elderly Issei couple whose attempt to avoid the mass roundup of Japanese Americans during World War II is aided by a white nurse. Tsuru was a senior year project at Chapman University by Chris K. T. Bright.
Topaz Mosaic (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Communication—verbal and nonverbal, Family—blessing or curse, Optimism—power or folly, Reunion
- Widely available
Three vignettes by Toshio Mori centering on a family in Topaz and the furlough visit of their Nisei soldier son. In the first, an Issei father struggles to write a letter to his son Sam in English. In the second, Sam stops in Salt Lake City to buy presents for his family before visiting them in Topaz the next day, recalling the friend (presumably in Topaz) who was convinced he was a "sucker" for volunteering. In the last, Sam is greeted warmly by his family and learns that a sister has left camp for New York and a brother is also joining the army.
Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Darkness and light, Expression through art, Nature as beauty
- Widely available
Documentary film on photographer Toyo Miyatake , directed by Robert A. Nakamura for the Japanese American National Museum in 2001. Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray traces Miyatake's various identities as Little Tokyo studio photographer of portraits, weddings, and other events before and after the war; prewar art photographer; and surreptitious chronicler of incarceration during World War II. The film is an expansion of Nakamura's earlier documentary on Miyatake, The Brighter Side of Dark: Toyo Miyatake, 1895–1979 . Among its awards are a CINE Gold Eagle and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the Florida Film Festival; it was also an official selection of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
Uncle Gunjiro's Girlfriend (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Power of the past, Reunion, Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy
- Limited availability
Performance piece that incorporates storytelling, music, dance, and multimedia elements to expose the secret of Brenda Wong Aoki's family: her great-uncle's marriage to a white woman and the subsequent split in the family.
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.
Under the Blood Red Sun (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8
- Historical Fiction, Young Adult
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Growing up – pain or pleasure, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Acclaimed novel for young adults set in the early months of World War II told through the eyes of a teenage Nisei protagonist in Honolulu whose father and grandfather are both interned. The novel was made into a feature film in 2014. It was followed by a sequel, House of the Red Fish , in 2006.
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 .
Two Nails, One Love (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction, Gay and Lesbian
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Family – blessing or curse, Individual versus society, Power of the past
- Widely available
Short novel told in the first-person voice of Ethan Taniguchi, a Sansei musician living in New York City in the year 2000, centering on the visit of his estranged mother from Hawai'i. Throughout his life—but particularly after the death of his beloved father—Ethan has felt distant from his mother, whom he feels is too bound by arcane Japanese tradition and who hasn't supported his being gay and his pursuing a career as a musician. But learning the details of her wartime incarceration story—her father had been interned and their family had been deported to Japan on the M.S. Gripsholm as part of a civilian exchange—and her quest for reparations via the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 changes the dynamic between them.
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.
Tokyo Rose: Victim of Propaganda (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Facing darkness, Individual versus society
- Available
Television documentary for A&E network's "Biography" series that sympathetically tells the story of Iva Toguri d'Aquino and the myth of "Tokyo Rose."
Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Individual versus society
- Available
Novel by Edward Miyakawa set in the eponymous concentration camp. Tule Lake was likely the first novel by a Japanese American set in one of the World War II concentration camps to be published when it first appeared in 1979. It was also notable for its unflinching portrayal of life in the most repressive of the camps.
We Said No! No!: A Story of Civil Disobedience (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism - Real and Perceived, Injustice
- Limited availability
Documentary film by Arnold Tadao Maeda that focuses on life at post-segregation Tule Lake .
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.
We the People: The Stage Production (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Loss of innocence, Power of tradition
- Available
Short film that documents the performance of the elementary school age students of Jan Ken Po Gakko in Sacramento on July 20, 2000. The production is highlighted by a play performed by the students based on Mary Tsukamoto and Elizabeth Pinkerton's book We the People .
We'll Meet Again: Children of WWII (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Growing up – pain or pleasure, Power of the past, Reunion
- Widely available
Debut episode of television series hosted by Ann Curry that tells stories about the reuniting of people tied together by a key historical event many years later. The first of six episodes in the show's first season focuses a pair of stories about children of World War II seeking out people who had a big impact on their lives during difficult times.
Welcome Home! (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Totalitarianism
- Widely available
Short story that contrasts the reception of two returning soldiers to their homes after serving overseas. Two soldiers meet on a train and talk about what they look forward to upon returning home. The first, presumably white, gets off the train to a warm welcome by parents, a girlfriend and the family pet. The second, a Japanese American has no one waiting for him, since his family is still incarcerated in an Arizona concentration camp. He is ignored or greeted coldly by the locals in his hometown and when he gets to his family home, finds that it has been vandalized and painted with racist epithets. Authored by Sgt. Len Zinberg, Welcome Home! was first published in Yank , a weekly magazine published by the U.S. Army and reprinted in the Pacific Citizen in 1945.
What the Scarecrow Said (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Importance of community
- Facing darkness, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
Novel set in the last months of World War II whose protagonist is a middle-aged Nisei widower who resettles in a small New England town.
When the World Winds Down (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Isolation, Lost love
- Limited availability
Short story by Sharon Hashimoto about a watch repairman who fixes a gold watch brought in by a young man who reminds him of his late brother. Fred Fujita is one of the last remaining Nisei businessmen in the old Japanese section of Seattle. Agreeing to fix the gold watch at the end of one day, he decides to work on it at home, observing that his late wife would have objected to his doing so. While working on the watch, he recalls his brother Jimmy—the night at Heart Mountain when the seventeen-year-old Jimmy tells him he is going to enlist, trying to talk him out of it, and receiving word that he is missing in action.
When You're Smiling: The Deadly Legacy of Internment (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Power of the past
- Available
Autobiographical film by Janice D. Tanaka about growing up Sansei in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s amidst parental silence about their wartime incarceration. It was one of several films about aspects of the incarceration funded by the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund .
When Your Body Has Been Rolled in Thorns (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Evils of racism, Facing reality, Loss of innocence, Will to survive
- Widely available
Short story by Ferris Takahashi about a Japanese American family leaving a concentration camp to return to their old home in Los Angeles. Told from the perspective of a college educated Nisei husband and father of two young children, the story begins as they gather up their possessions and prepare to leave the camp. Yosh, a friend who had returned earlier and was able to reestablish his business, greets them at the train station. When they return to their home, they find it trashed and vandalized, with all the furniture gone. They also learn that the Buddhist temple in which they had stored other possessions had burned down. Yosh and his family offer to put them up until they can fix their house. Returning to look more closely at the house after dinner, the man and his Issei mother find racist graffiti. His mother assures him that they will rebound.
White Road of Thorns: Journalist's Diary—Trials and Tribulations of the Japanese American Internment During World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Will to survive
- Available
Wartime diary of Issei journalist and Japanese language school teacher Hisa Aoki that covers the period prior to her return to Japan on the second voyage of the Gripsholm . Originally published in Japan in 1953, it was translated into English by Archie Miyamoto at the behest of Aoki's elder daughter, Mary Yoko Nakamura.
Who's Going to Pay for These Donuts, Anyway? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Experimental documentary film by Janice Tanaka that centers on her finding and reuniting with a father and an uncle—one diagnosed as mentally ill and the other conventionally successful—neither of whom she had seen since childhood.