Browse > Interest Level > Adult
536 articles
Home Again (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Character - destruction and building up, Displacement, Evils of racism
- Available
A 1955 novel authored by a former War Relocation Authority (WRA) official that tells the epic story of one Japanese American family from California, covering their prewar travails, their wartime incarceration, and their return to California after the war. The book was heavily promoted particularly within the Japanese American community and widely reviewed.
Fox Drum Bebop (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Power of words
- Widely available
Novel by Gene Oishi that tells the saga of the Konos, a Japanese American farming family from coastal California, covering the years 1940 to 1982. Largely based on the author's own life and family, each chapter is a stand alone short story set in a particular time period. Early chapters covering the prewar years and the upheavals of World War II are told from the perspective of different family members, while later chapters covering the postwar years are largely through the perspective of Hiroshi, the character based on the author. Fox Drum Bebop was published by Kaya Press in 2014 and received the 2016 Association for Asian American Studies book award in the Creative Writing: Prose category.
21st Century Manzanar (book)
- Books
- Adult
- Fiction
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Available
Novel by Perry Miyake that imagines an early 21st century roundup of Japanese Americans and how Sansei and Yonsei would react to it.
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.
Against Their Will: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Injustice
- Available
Exhibition centering on the experiences of Japanese Americans in Jerome and Rohwer , the two concentration camps located in Arkansas, as well as those of who lived near the camps and/or worked in them. The exhibition was developed by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program and debuted as part of the Life Interrupted project in 2004. The largest of eight exhibitions mounted in various venues in the Little Rock area, Against Their Will debuted at Arkansas Statehouse Convention Center downstairs foyer on September 24, 2004, running through November 28, 2004. Against Their Will is currently on permanent display at the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum , which opened in McGehee, Arkansas, in 2013.
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, …
What If Heroes Were Not Welcome Home? (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Isolation
- Widely available
Exhibition on the return of Nisei soldiers to their Hood River, Oregon, home, recounting the chilly reception they received from the local community as well as highlighting those who stood up for them. Curated by Linda Tamura and Marsha Matthews and organized by the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), What If Heroes Were Not Welcome Home? debuted at the OHS in Portland in August 2013 in conjunction with the display of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Japanese American veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , 100th Infantry Battalion , and Military Intelligence Service .
Whispered Silences: Japanese American Detention Camps, Fifty Years Later (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Displacement, Power of the past
- Available
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibition that featured photographs of former Japanese American concentration camp sites shot during the 1980s by artist Joan Myers. Debuting in 1995, the exhibition traveled around the country for the next four years. It was accompanied by a book published by the University of Washington Press titled Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II , which includes her photographs along with Gary Okihiro's historical/autobiographical overview of Japanese American history.
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]
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.
The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Displacement, Beauty of simplicity
- Available
Traveling exhibition highlighting art and craft objects made by incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime concentration camps. Curated by Delphine Hirasuna and based on the 2005 book of the same name, The Art of Gaman exhibition has traveled to fourteen venues since its debut in 2006.
The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Displacement
- Available
Exhibition of art objects created by Japanese Americans in Rohwer . Mounted in 2011 by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the exhibition was based on the collection of Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel, an art teacher at Rohwer. Vogel bequeathed the objects to McGehee, Arkansas, Mayor Rosalie Santine Gould, who in turn donated the collection to the Butler Center in 2010. The Art of Living included about 125 pieces, ranging from fashion sketches to bird pins to paintings in a wide variety of styles, augmented by photographs of the camp and interview segments with former Rohwer inmates. The project also includes an online version of the exhibition. Among the public programs tied to the exhibition's run were talks by Delphine Hirasuna, author of The Art of Gaman and by Vivienne Schiffer, daughter of Gould and author of the novel Camp Nine , which is set in a Rohwer-like concentration camp.
Arts and Crafts from the Camps: The Arkansas Camp Experience (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Beauty of simplicity, Desire to escape
- Limited availability
Exhibition of art and craft objects created by Japanese American inmates at the Arkansas concentration camps. Curated by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program in 2004, the exhibition included objects from the collection of Rosalie Gould, a former mayor of McGehee, Arkansas, who had amassed a substantial private collection. [1] Arts and Crafts from the Camps was one of the eight exhibitions mounted in the Little Rock 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.
American Heroes: Japanese American World War II Nisei Soldiers and the Congressional Gold Medal (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Patriotism - positive side or complications, Heroism - real and perceived
- Limited availability
Traveling exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution to commemorate the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to the 100th Infantry Battalion , 442nd Regimental Combat Team , and Military Intelligence Service in 2011. Created by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in partnership with National Veterans Network, National Museum of American History, and Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, the exhibition included photo and text panels about the Japanese Americans who served in World War II along with the medal itself.
A Brother Is a Stranger (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Change versus tradition, Desire to escape, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Nationalism – complications, Power of tradition
- Available
Memoir of a young Japanese immigrant/refugee Christian about his upbringing and travails in Japan, his journey to the U.S. and his wartime internment, and his postwar observations in Japan. Published in 1946 by the John Day Company, it was among the first books by a Japanese American to appear after the war.
Beyond the Call of Duty: Honoring the 24 Japanese American Medal of Honor Recipients (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Patriotism - positive side or complications, Heroism - real and perceived
- Limited availability
2004-05 exhibition on Japanese American recipients of the Medal of Honor , the country's highest military decoration organized by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Of the twenty-four Japanese American recipients, twenty-one were honored for their service during World War II. Beyond the Call of Duty was one of eight exhibitions in the Little Rock, Arkansas, area that were part of the Life Interrupted project, a collaboration between JANM 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 Witness: Our Brothers' Keepers and Undaunted Courage, Proven Loyalty: Japanese American Soldiers in World War II .
Citizen 13660 (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir, Graphic Novels
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Expression through art, Will to survive
- Widely available
Published in 1946 as the last camps were being shuttered, Nisei artist Miné Okubo 's illustrated eponymous memoir, Citizen 13660 , has the distinction of being the earliest, first-person, book-length account of the American concentration camp experience. Always a vigorous booster of her own work, Okubo promoted the book that came to define her career as "the first and only documentary story of the Japanese evacuation and relocation written and illustrated by one who was there." [1] All told, Okubo produced an estimated 2,000 portraits of camp life in a range of styles and materials, including ink, charcoal, and gouache, while imprisoned at the Tanforan temporary detention camp in California and the Topaz concentration camp in Utah. Okubo's voluminous output notwithstanding, it was primarily Citizen 13660' s roughly 200 line-drawings that established her standing as a major chronicler of and historic witness to the camp experience.
City in the Sun (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Displacement, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
1946 novel by Karon Kehoe that represented the first full-length work of adult fiction to dramatize Japanese American confinement.
Chicago Goes to War, 1941-1945 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Importance of community
- No availability
1992–93 exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society on the impact of World War II on Chicago. Among the topics covered in the exhibition is the resettlement in the Chicago area of Japanese Americans from wartime concentration camps. It was one of several major local exhibitions that appeared around the 50th anniversary of World War II and that included aspects of the local Japanese American story.
Sights Unseen: The Photographic Constructions of Masumi Hayashi (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art
- Available
Retrospective exhibition of the work of photographic collage artist Masumi Hayashi held at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Curated by Karin Higa, Sights Unseen included thirty of Hayashi's works—each of which are photo collages consisting of anywhere from five to one hundred forty individual photographs—including several from JANM's collection. This first survey of Hayashi's work included pieces from five different sets of work: abandoned prisons, EPA Superfund sites, Japanese American and Japanese Canadian concentration camps, sacred sites, and portraits of Nikkei . The five Nikkei portraits—of Fumi Hayashida, Yuri Kochiyama , Joy Kogawa, Miné Okubo , and Eji Suyama—were displayed for the first time.
Strength and Diversity: Japanese American Women, 1885–1990 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Female roles, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Role of women
- No availability
Pioneering traveling exhibition on the experiences of Japanese American women organized by the National Japanese American Historical Society and the Oakland Museum in 1990. Strength and Diversity went on to travel throughout the country as part of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) over the next decade plus.
Success Story, Japanese American Style (article)
- Articles
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Non-fiction
- Overcoming, Social mobility
- Available
Often cited popular account of Japanese American "success" by a University of California demographer, one of several such articles to appear in the '60s and '70s.
Clark and Division (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Disillusionment and dreams, Quest for discovery
- Widely available
Edgar Award winning mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara set among Japanese Americans who have resettled in Chicago in 1944.
They Call Me Moses Masaoka: An American Saga (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Patriotism – positive side or complications, Quest for power, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Nisei known primarily for his role as executive secretary of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) during World War II reflects on his life experiences, and declares with confidence that he would make the same choices if he could do it over again.