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574 articles

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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.

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.

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.

Jimmy Murakami-Non Alien (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Expression through art, Power of the past
Widely available

Irish documentary filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle's profile of expatriate Nisei animator, filmmaker, and artist Jimmy Murakami.

The Hawai'i Nisei Story (website)

Websites
Grades 9-12, Adult
Virtual Exhibit
Heroism – real and perceived, Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Widely available

Website developed in the mid-2000s by the University of Hawai'i built around oral histories of Nisei veterans from Hawai'i.

Baseball Behind Barbed Wire (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Role of men
Widely available

Documentary film on baseball in camp with a particular focus on the story of Issei baseball pioneer Kenichi Zenimura and Gila River . Filmmaker Yuriko Gamo Romer builds the story around interviews with Nisei Baseball Research Project Director Kerry Yo Nakagawa and Zenimura biographer Bill Staples, Jr., along with archival interviews with Tets Furukawa and Howard Kenso Zenimura, two Nisei who played under Zenimura, the latter interviews being augmented by Sabina Kariat's animation.

Lessons in Loyalty: One American's Internment Camp Experience (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Documentary film that profiles Masaji "Mas" Inoshita, a Nisei who was forcibly removed and incarcerated with his family at the Gila River , Arizona, camp during World War II and who subsequently served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . Lessons in Loyalty is built around interviews with Inoshita and also includes scenes of him visiting the Gila River site and speaking to a class about his experiences. Karen Leong, a professor at Arizona State University, provides the historical context. The film was produced by Ray Gonzales for the City of Chandler, Arizona in 2007.

Farewell to Manzanar (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, History
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
Available

Made-for-television movie about a Japanese American family in Manzanar during World War II. Based on the book of the same name by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Farewell to Manzanar aired nationally on NBC stations on March 11, 1976, and remains one of the few mainstream dramatic films centered on the Japanese American concentration camp experience.

Farewell to Manzanar (book)

Books
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Working class struggles
Widely available

Popular memoir that tells the story of one family's forced removal and confinement at Manzanar through the eyes of a young girl. First published in 1973, Farewell to Manzanar has sold over one million copies and is one of the most widely read accounts of Japanese American incarceration and its aftermath.

An Alien Place: The Fort Missoula Detention Camp, 1941–1944 (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Facing darkness, Injustice, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Widely available

Documentary film by Kimberly Hogberg on the Fort Missoula Detention Camp that covers the history of the Italian seamen and Issei community leaders who were imprisoned there during World War II.

Phantoms (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Historical Fiction
Facing darkness, Heartbreak of betrayal, Injustice, Power of the past
Widely available

Novel by Christian Kiefer centering on a white Vietnam War veteran who tries to unravel the story of what happened to a Nisei World War II veteran, gaining insight into his own experiences in the process.

Letters to Memory (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Circle of life, Family – blessing or curse, Optimism – power or folly, Power of the past, Quest for discovery
Widely available

Incarceration-centered history of one Japanese American family told through short vignettes inspired by letters, photographs, and other objects in the family archive, as written by acclaimed novelist Karen Tei Yamashita.

The Ito Sisters (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Role of women
No availability

Documentary on three Nisei sisters from Central California who lived to see their beiju (88th birthday) celebration, exploring their lives to the end of World War II.

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.

Kintsukuroi (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, History
Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
Available

Feature-length family saga centering on a Japanese American family's wartime incarceration odyssey.

Community in Conflict: The Santa Fe Internment Camp Marker (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Change versus tradition, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
Available

Documentary film on the contentious effort to build a historical marker at the site of the Santa Fe Internment Camp in the late 1990s.

Visible Target (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Progress – real or illusion
Widely available

Documentary film on the forced removal of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island , Washington. Cris Anderson and John de Graaf produced Visible Target in 1984 for Seattle public television station KCTS, making it one of the earliest documentaries to tackle the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.

... I Told You So (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Importance of community, Power of words
Widely available

Early documentary film produced by the Asian American arts organization Visual Communications that profiles the Sansei poet Lawson Fusao Inada . Shot in black and white, the film follows Inada through the streets of Fresno where he recites poetry from his 1971 book Before the War: poems as they happened over music by June and Dan Kuramoto, visiting friends and the family fish market. Later, he is shown working with other Asian American writers/editors on a new literary anthology (that will be published as Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers ), at work teaching at Southern Oregon University and walking among the ruins at the Tule Lake site. Between the poetry, Inada talks about his upbringing in Fresno where he related more to Chicano and African American classmates than to Japanese Americans, his family background, and the impact of wartime incarceration. No director, producer or writer is listed in …

"Putting Them Where They Could Do No Harm" (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Evils of racism, Heartbreak of betrayal, Power of words
Widely available

Short film that makes the case for renaming Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown Los Angeles, named after the wartime mayor of Los Angeles who agitated for the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Eschewing narration, the film uses Bowron's wartime radio addresses (voiced by Maciek Kolodziejeczak) as evidence of his anti-Japanese and pro-exclusion stance, juxtaposed with excerpts from Japanese Americans testifying about their wartime experiences in clips from testimony before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians . The film ends with many examples of entities whose names have been changed in recent years due to changing societal attitudes towards race, before calling for the renaming of Fletcher Bowron Square. The title comes from one of Bowron's radio addresses.

Six Weddings and a Dress (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Short documentary film centering on Chiyomi Ogawa, a Nisei woman who had been incarcerated in Manzanar , and her wedding dress, which was subsequently used by five other women in the early postwar years.

We Hereby Refuse: The Akutsu Family Resists (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Animation
Chaos and order, Evils of racism, Heartbreak of betrayal
Widely available

Simply animated story focusing on the Akutsu family, told in Nisei Jim Akutsu's first-person voice, starting with the arrest of his father after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his internment and interrogation, Jim's unsuccessful attempts to enlist, and the family's subsequent removal to Puyallup . In between the Akutsu family story are scenes of Japanese American Citizens League leaders Mike Masaoka and James Sakamoto cooperating with government officials to facilitate the roundup. The story was adapted from the book We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, with the animation based on Ross Ishikawa's artwork for the book.

Honor Bound: A Personal Journey (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Heroism - real or perceived, Power of the past
Available

Documentary film that tells the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team through the story of one soldier, Haruo Howard "Howe" Hanamura, and his daughter, television reporter Wendy Hanamura, who travel to Europe in October 1994 for 50th anniversary ceremonies of the liberation of Bruyeres and Biffontaine by the 442nd. The film was produced by the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) and KPIX, San Francisco, where Wendy Hanamura was a news reporter. After debuting on KPIX on March 5, 1995, it went on to be shown on over 100 PBS stations.

Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Quest for discovery, Rebirth
Widely available

Documentary profile of performing artist and activist Nobuko Miyamoto tracing her early career as a precocious dancer and singer on Broadway and in Hollywood followed by a political awakening that saw her and her songwriting partner Chris Iijima become the musical voice of the Asian American Movement. The film traces her life as a single mother in Los Angeles, where she teaches dance out of the Senshin Buddhist Temple before forming the Asian American performing arts company Great Leap. The film also includes a brief segment of Miyamoto's memories of her and her family's wartime incarceration at the Santa Anita Assembly Center .

One Fighting Irishman: Wayne M. Collins and the Tule Lake Segregation Center (film)

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

Documentary film profiling lawyer Wayne M. Collins that focuses on his years-long work to nullify the renunciations of thousands of Tule Lake inmates in the years after World War II. Built around a colorfully profane audio of a 1970s interview with Collins by historian Donald Collins (no relation), the film explores Collins' troubled early life, the broader Tule Lake Segregation Center story, and the wide ranging impact Collins' actions had on generations of Tule Lake families, including that of narrator George Takei.

Sowing Seeds of Life… of Hope (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Empowerment, Optimism – power or folly, Will to survive
Widely available

Short film about Kumezo Hachimonji, an Issei seed store owner from El Monte, California, who brought seeds with him to Heart Mountain that were used to grow vegetables there. The film is based on an interview with Ike Hachimonji, Kumezo's Nisei son. The short film by Michi Tanioka came out Visual Communications ' Digital Histories program, a program to encourage older Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander adults to tell stories through film.

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