Browse > Interest Level > Adult
574 articles
Within Their Gates (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Dangers of ignorance, Injustice, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film directed by Matthew Goriachkovsky and narrated by eighty-three year old Yukio Shimomura. Shimomura tells the story of his incarceration at Manzanar over original music and period photographs and movies, along with contemporary footage of the site. The film ends with footage of Donald Trump's incendiary speeches and images of ICE detention centers, and protests and counter-protests, with Shimomura noting the parallels between his incarceration experience and the present.
Warning Shot: The Killing of James H. Wakasa (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Death – inevitable or tragedy, Injustice
- Availability
Film essay by Tina Takemoto about James Hatsuaki Wakasa and other men who were shot to death by guards in concentration camps holding Japanese Americans during World War II. Takemoto uses clips from Hollywood movies, period documentaries and industrial films along with images of camp newspapers and contemporaneous reports to tell the story, augmented with captions. Takemoto suggests that Wakasa was gay, noting the close male companion with whom he traveled the country prior to the war. After detailing Wakasa's killing, Takemoto lists the other Japanese Americans killed by guards in the camps.
Armed with Language (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism – real and perceived, Role of men, Vulnerability of the strong, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Documentary film on the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and about Nisei in the MIS in general. Written and narrated by writer and poet David Mura, Armed with Language , begins with the forced removal and incarceration of West Coast Japanese Americans and the dilemma of the men who volunteered for the MIS despite their or their families' incarceration. The film uses interviews with MIS veterans and their families along with military historians to tell the story of the language school and of the MIS soldiers in the Pacific, highlighting stories of Merrill's Marauders, Nisei women in the MIS, and Nisei in the occupation of Japan. There is also a brief segment on resettlement and the growth of the Japanese American community in the Twin Cities as well as on the Redress movement and relevance of the story today.
Arnold Knows Me: The Tommy Kono Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Role of men
- Widely available
Documentary film that charts Nisei Tommy Kono 's unlikely rise from a World War II concentration camp to becoming one of America's greatest Olympic style weightlifters.
An American Contradiction (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past, Power of words
- Widely available
Filmmaker Vanessa Yuille goes to visit the Heart Mountain site, where her mother was born, to learn more about its history. Through interviews with former inmates—particularly Bacon Sakatani—and local residents and experts, she provides an overview of the mass removal and incarceration and of life at Heart Mountain. We also see LaDonna Zall, acting curator at the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , lead tour of the site as it is today. The film concludes with Sakatani leading what looks like a local community meeting in a discussion about whether the camp should be called a "concentration camp."
An American Hero: Shiro Kashino (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Animation
- Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
Short documentary film that uses animation and archival footage to tell the story of Shiro Kashino, a Nisei from Seattle who becomes a war hero as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , but who loses his rank for his role in a fight in France.
An American History: Resettlement of Japanese Americans in Greater Cleveland (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Self-reliance, Injustice
- Available
Oral history-based documentary centering on Japanese Americans who resettled in Cleveland after leaving the concentration camps. Directed by Greg Petusky and Johnny Wu, the film was funded in part by a grant from the Japanese American Citizen's League's National Endowment Fund. It debuted at a screening at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History on April 8, 2000.
An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, History
- Empowerment, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Quest for power, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film that profiles Nisei politician Norman Mineta with a particular focus on his childhood years in an American concentration camp and his role forty years later in the Redress movement .
The Art of Gaman: The Story Behind the Objects (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Will to survive
- Widely available
A short documentary film created by Rick Quan in 2010 to accompany the traveling exhibition, The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 which features arts and crafts created by Japanese American internees while living in World War II concentration camps. The film includes stories about the inmates who created the objects included in the exhibition, as told by their children and grandchildren. It also includes an interview with the exhibition's curator, Delphine Hirasuna, who describes The Art of Gaman' s purpose of celebrating the unique talents of these camp artists and helping people understand the larger story of the Japanese American mass confinement. The DVD release also includes Voices Long Silent , a 1980 short film by Bob Matsumoto, that was also shown in conjunction with The Art of Gaman exhibition.
An American Story: The History of California's Nisei Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- No availability
Short documentary on California's Nisei veterans produced by photographer Tom Graves. The video was funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
An American Christmas (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Working class struggles
- Available
Short story by Alice Nash centering on an elderly Issei woman in contemporary New York. As she struggles to carry a bag of rice home to her apartment, she reflects on her arrival in New York with her late husband after leaving the concentration camp and the kind Yamaguchi family who put them up while refusing to take money from them. They eventually opened a cleaning shop that helped pay for their only son's college education. A successful businessman in California, the son takes her on a trip every year, but largely keeps her away from her grandchildren due to his white wife's discomfort with her. When she gets back to her apartment, the family of the building's supervisor, the Gonzalez family, invites her to their home to help decorate their Christmas tree.
An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Widely available
An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten is the third book in a series published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i and University of Hawai'i Press of a Hawai'i inmate's account of their incarceration experience during World War II. It represents a critical addition to Japanese American history as it provides the perspective of an Issei from Hawai'i who authorities incarcerated at multiple sites in the Islands and the mainland. The author, Kumaji Furuya , thus gives voice to some of the experiences faced by the 1,320 inmates from Hawai'i who like Furuya were often separated from their families for the duration of the war.
And Then a Rainbow (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Role of women, Will to survive, Working class struggles
- Limited availability
Memoir by a Nisei woman who renounces her citizenship at Tule Lake and lives in Japan for thirteen years before returning to the U.S.
And Then They Came for Us (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Expression through art, Power of the past, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Documentary film that provides an overview of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans while drawing explicit parallels to agitation against Arab Americans in the early months of the Trump Administration.
And There Are Stories, There Are Stories (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Coming of age, Power of the past, Self – inner and outer
- Available
Prose poem memoir by Momoko Iko that traces her family's journey out of the concentration camps and her subsequent upbringing away from Japanese American communities on the West Coast. She begins with her birth in 1940 to Issei parents, her fleeting recollections of her family's incarceration, and life after the war, first in Philadelphia, then Chicago . Various stories centering on racism, racial identity, interracial relations, and the legacy of the camps in the 1950s and 1960s follow, tracing the narrator's journey to becoming a writer.
Beacon Hill Boys (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 7-8
- Young Adult, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Power of tradition
- Available
Novel for young adults by Ken Mochizuki about a Sansei teenager's quest for identity and meaning in 1972 Seattle.
Bearing the Unbearable (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film on the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island, Washington , produced for the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial by North Shore Productions.
American in Disguise (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Identity crisis, Wisdom of experience
- Available
American in Disguise is Daniel Okimoto's account of his search for identity in America and Japan. The book was originally published in 1971 by John Weatherhill, Inc, with a foreword by James Michener.
American Pastime (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, History, Sport
- Widely available
A 2007 feature film directed by Desmond Nakano that is based on true events that occurred at Topaz , an American concentration camp in Utah which held thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. The film's story focuses on the Nomura family, whose mother and father are both Issei , and their two Nisei children, Lane and Lyle. Following the signing of Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, the Nomuras, along with over 120,000 other Japanese living on the West Coast, are forced into desolate government camps across the country. To boost the morale of the younger inmates and help build a sense of community, Mr. Nomura, who was once a professional baseball player, forms an in-camp league within the concentration camp, in an attempt to to instill some sense of normality into their lives.
American Scrapbook (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical fiction
- Identity crisis, Family
- Widely available
Novel set in Manzanar and Tule Lake by prolific writer Jerome Charyn and published in 1969.
American Sons (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Empowerment, Evils of racism, Quest for discovery, Role of men
- Widely available
Docudrama by Steven Okazaki about four Asian American male characters talking about the role of race in their lives. Though played by actors, the words spoken by each character come from interviews with real people.
American Fish (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Short, Drama
- Available
Short dramatic film about two Nisei women who run into each other at a grocery store and the dance that ensues when neither can remember who the other is. Humorous at first, the tone shifts when one asks about "camp" and other replies that she was in Tule Lake , invoking stereotypes of the camp and its inmates in the other. Directed by Jesse Wine, "American Fish" was based on the short story of the same name by R. A. Sasaki. It was screened as part of the Tule Lake Pilgrimage in 1996.
Betrayed Trust: The Story of a Deported Issei and His American-Born Family During World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Heartbreak of betrayal, Identity crisis, Immigrant experience, Losing hope
- Available
A Nisei shares his family's heart-wrenching experience of wartime incarceration and the complex background behind their decision to go to Japan instead of staying in the U.S. after the end of the war.
Betrayed: Surviving an American Concentration Camp (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Widely available
Hour-long documentary on the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp adapted from the half-hour version used as the orientation film at the Minidoka National Historic Site. Betrayed aired nationally on public television stations in April 2022.
Beyond Barbed Wire (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of men, Disillusionment and dreams
- Available
A 1997 documentary film on the Japanese American soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion , the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service who fought for the United States during World War II while some of their families were held in concentration camps. The film is based on interviews with numerous veterans as well as with their wives and adult children. Among topics touched on in Beyond Barbed Wire are friction between men from Hawai'i and the continental U.S. during basic training; the unusual story of Korean American Colonel Young O. Kim; the rescue of the Lost Battalion , and the continuing legacy of the veterans for their families. One unique aspect of the film is its treatment of the controversy over the role of Major General John Dahlquist , whom some veterans feel used the Nisei as "cannon fodder." In telling the story of the mass incarceration, …