Browse > Interest Level > Grades 9-12
618 articles
Sanga moyu (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Family - blessing or curse, Patriotism - positive side or complications
- Limited availability
Japanese television series that dramatized the Japanese American experience. Sanga moyu (Burning Mountains and Rivers) was a 1984 series produced by NHK, Japan's national broadcasting network. Consisting of 51 episodes that ran 45 minutes each, the series debuted on January 8, 1984, and ran through December 23, 1984. The story was based on the novel Futatsu no sokoku (Two Homelands) by Toyoko Yamasaki and focused on the Amo family of Los Angeles whose three Nisei sons chose different paths during World War II while the family was incarcerated at Manzanar : one who volunteers for the U.S. Army and fights in Europe, another who serves in the Military Intelligence Service during the war crimes trials and American occupation, and a third who is trapped in Japan at the outbreak of war and drafted into the Japanese army. Japanese American organizations in the continental United States objected to the portrayal of …
Manzanar: Photographs by Ansel Adams of Loyal Japanese-American Relocation Center (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art
- Displacement, Injustice, Character - destruction, building up
- Available
Landmark exhibition of Ansel Adams ' photographs of Manzanar at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Opening on November 9, 1944, Manzanar was not only the sole major museum exhibition documenting the Japanese American incarceration to be displayed while incarceration was still ongoing, but arguably the only such exhibition to appear for the next twenty-five years.
Act of Faith: The Rev. Emery Andrews Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Love and sacrifice
- Widely available
Documentary film on Rev. Emery Andrews , a Baptist priest who went beyond the call of duty to aid Japanese Americans from Seattle incarcerated at the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp.
Right of Passage (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Empowerment, Female roles, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film by Janice D. Tanaka that chronicles the convoluted twenty-year history of the Redress Movement .
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8
- Fiction
- Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Evils of racism, Lost love
- Widely available
Bestselling 2009 novel by Jamie Ford about a doomed romance between a young Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl in 1942 Seattle.
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.
Allegiance (play)
- Plays
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Musical
- Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of women
- No availability
Musical play set largely in Heart Mountain that had a three-month run on Broadway in 2015–16. Written by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione with music and lyrics by Kuo and starring George Takei and Lea Salonga, Allegiance was the first Broadway play to broach the subject of Japanese American forced removal and incarceration during World War II.
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.
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.
A Circle of Freedom: Lost and Restored (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Importance of community
- Limited availability
Exhibition at the History Museum of Hood River County on the Japanese American experience in Hood River, Oregon. Instigated by Museum Coordinator Connie Nice once she learned of the of the wartime incarceration of local Japanese Americans and the particularly virulent opposition to their postwar return, the exhibition has the support of the local community. The small exhibition included four sections: "Our Lives Before," "Our Lives Removed," " Our Lives in Camp," and "Our Lives in Service." Included in the exhibition are documents from the local American Legion chapter, which made national headlines in 1944 when it removed the names of Nisei soldiers from a local "roll of honor." The exhibition subsequently became a semi-permanent part of the museum.
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 More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Will to survive, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Nationalism - complications, Immigrant experience, Evils of racism
- Widely available
In 1987, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH) opened A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the US Constitution (MPU), an exhibition on the World War II Japanese American detention centers designed to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Though the creation of an exhibition that exemplified a moment of weakness for the Constitution was opposed by some, the exhibition stayed long past its intended term and was replaced with a permanent online version even after its physical removal in 2004.
The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, War - glory, pain, necessity, tragedy
- Widely available
Documentary film centering on the Japanese American wartime experience that was part of CBS television's weekly The Twentieth Century series. The half-hour episode was the first retrospective documentary on the wartime exclusion and incarceration experience.
Desert Exile (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, Non fiction
- Injustice, Displacement, Evils of racism
- Widely available
Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family is an autobiography by noted children's book author Yoshiko Uchida that chronicles her experiences in the years before and during her incarceration in an American concentration camp during World War II. It was originally published in 1982 by the University of Washington Press and reissued with a new introduction by Traise Yamamoto in 2015.
Going for Honor, Going for Broke (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived
- Limited availability
Short 2006 documentary film that gives an overview of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team . Produced, written, directed, narrated & edited by George Toshio Johnston, he film was funded by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .
A Grain of Sand (album)
- Albums
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Contemporary Folk
- Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Injustice
- Widely available
Originally produced and released in 1973 by Paredon Records, A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America by folk trio Chris Kando Iijima , Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto , and William "Charlie" Chin is widely recognized to be the first album of Asian American music. The record is a combination of folk songs, political ballads and protest songs. The music was written, performed and recorded at the height of the Asian American, black, and anti-war movements in the early '70s by New York musicians and activists Iijima, Miyamoto, and Chin, who were then in their twenties and early thirties. The original album includes artwork by Arlan Huang/Artist Resource Basement Workshop on the album jacket and liner notes with a political statement by the musicians, lyrics, and a list of Asian American publications from the era. One of the songs, "We Are the Children," is likely the first …
No-No Boy (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
In 1956, Nisei writer John Okada wrote No-No Boy , a novel that explored the predicament of a Japanese American World War II conscientious objector, having served time in prison for refusing to serve in the military, who returns home only to face the consequences of his decision. Upon arriving in his former neighborhood, he is met with hostility and despair. He discovers that his mother delusionally believes that Japan has won the war, and his younger brother—ashamed of Ichiro's decision to refuse the draft—abruptly quits high school to join the army himself. In the course of the novel, Ichiro's inner conflict grows to reflect the racial tension and residual anguish following the war and his individual guilt represents the conflict of the country at large.
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 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 based in part on the experiences of the author's father, a former War Relocation Authority (WRA) resettlement officer.