Browse > Interest Level > Grades 9-12

618 articles

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The Remembered Days (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Motherhood, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

A grandmother tells her grandchildren about her exclusion and confinement. Told in the first person voice of the grandmother, the story is divided into three sections: (1) recalling the train ride from Tanforan to Topaz ; (2) a rumination of the absurdity of the camp being dubbed the "Jewel of the Desert"; and (3) her remembrances of hearing of her son Yoshio's death while serving with the 442nd .

The Service Flags (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Evils of racism, Heroism—real and perceived, Individual versus society, Loss of innocence, Self-reliance
Widely available

Short story by Bill Hosokawa about the first days of resettlement of a young mother and her nine-year-old son. Helen Yamano and her son Jamie arrive in an unspecified city, and she hangs two flags, one for her brother who had been killed, presumably as an Military Intelligence Service linguist, and one for her husband, who is serving in Europe in the 442nd . Her first days on the job are difficult, as one of her co-workers makes trouble for her. Jamie is called a "Jap" by one of the boys on his first day of school. Helen tells him that like his father, he needs to fight to be accepted, and the next day he does.

The Steel Helmet (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama
War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Widely available

Dramatic film about infantry soldiers in the Korean War written and directed by Samuel Fuller. One of the ensemble is a Nisei soldier and World War II veteran played by Richard Loo. It is likely the first Hollywood film to note the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II in a disapproving manner.

Take What You Can Carry (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Young Adult
Coming of age, Individual versus society, Vulnerability of the strong, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

The lives of two older teen boys, Kyle and Ken, alternate stories in the graphic novel Take What You Can Carry (2012) by Kevin C. Pyle. Although experienced a generation apart, the stories of these two teens merge into a complete story of healing and redemption.

Tallgrass (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Change versus tradition, Coming of age, Dangers of ignorance, Female roles, Loss of innocence
Widely available

Coming-of-age novel by Sandra Dallas set in rural Colorado during World War II when the life of adolescent girl is transformed by the arrival of Japanese Americans from the West Coast in a nearby concentration camp.

Tadaima (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama
Companionship as salvation, Darkness and light, Disillusionment and dreams, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Widely available

Short dramatic film by Robin Takao D'Oench that chronicles the return of a Japanese American family to their West Coast home after being released from an American concentration camp. The family—two presumably Issei parents and two presumably Nisei kids, an older teenage boy and younger teenage girl—arrive at a home that is unkempt and dirty and also marred by anti-Japanese graffiti both inside and out. As they set about making the house livable again, the two kids go out into the woods and dig up a box filled with Japanese objects—family photographs, documents, and precious objects such as Japanese dolls and clothing—they had presumably buried in the period prior to their forced removal. As they slowly settle back into their home, each family member finds some degree of hope by the end of the first day. The title is a Japanese expression generally uttered by someone who is announcing his …

Tanforan: From Race Track to Assembly Center (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Displacement
Available

Documentary film on Tanforan , a former horse racing track that became the site of a wartime " assembly center " for incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II. The film includes interviews with many former inmates of Tanforan, some of whom lived in what were once horse stalls, including Maya Nagata Aikawa, George and Michiko Uchida, Tomoye Takahashi, Hid Kashima, Sox Kitashima, Dave Tatsuno , Yoneo Kawakita, Hiro Katayama, Sachi Kajiwara, Sugar Hirabayashi, Hiro Fujii, Yo Kasai, Chizu Togasaki, Tomoko Kashiwagi, Toru Saito, and Jan Matsuoka. Tanforan was produced by KCSM, a San Mateo, California based public television station as part of The New Americans series and was directed by Dianne Fukami. Funders for the film included the Chevron Corporation and the Ray and Peggy Daba Fund.

Teacher's Guide: The Bill of Rights and the Japanese American World War II Experience (curricula)

Curricula
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Injustice, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal
Limited availability

The forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II suspended their constitutional rights and civil liberties. This guide, for teachers of grades 4–12, focuses on this historical event to examine individual rights and the shared responsibility that students have to protect the rights of all individuals, even during times of national crisis.

Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of Hawai'i Island (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Power of the past, Injustice, Quest for discovery, Immigrant experience
Widely available

Short film that tells the story of Japanese Americans on Big Island of Hawai'i who were interned during World War II using a combination of contemporary interviews, historical photographs and footage, and historical reenactments. It is one of a series of four films produced by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i about the internment experience in each of the four counties of Hawai'i as a follow up to the 2012 film The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i .

Voices Behind Barbed Wire: Stories of O'ahu (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Power of the past, Injustice, Quest for discovery, Immigrant experience
Widely available

Short film that tells the story of Japanese Americans on O'ahu who were interned during World War II using a combination of contemporary interviews, historical photographs and footage, and historical reenactments. It is one of a series of four films produced by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i about the internment experience in each of the four counties of Hawai'i as a follow up to the 2012 film The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i .

Voices from the Camps: Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Power of the past
Available

Brief overview book for juvenile audiences on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans by prolific children's book author Larry Dane Brimner. The "voices" of the title are taken from testimony by Japanese Americans before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC).

Voices Long Silent (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Immigrant experience, Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Available

Documentary video that explores Issei perspectives of the wartime forced removal and incarceration, as related through voiceovers by actors from Los Angeles-based theater company, East West Players, accompanied by still photos of the incarceration. Filmmaker Bob Matsumoto was inspired by the testimony of Japanese Americans before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians , and sought to recapture the voices of those who were no longer able to tell their stories. Matsumoto updated the film twice, once after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and once after the retroactive awarding of Congressional Medal of Honor awards to Japanese Americans who had been overlooked for the award in the 1940s. Voices Long Silent was used to accompany the exhibition The Art of Gaman and included in the DVD release of The Story Behind the Objects , a video specially produced by an about the show.

Unexpected Journeys: Remarkable Stories of Japanese in America (film)

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

Documentary film consisting of short profiles of Japanese Americans whose "surprising stories" were shaped by World War II in unusual ways. The segments include

Unfinished Message (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Motherhood
Available

Seemingly autobiographical story by Toshio Mori about his mother and brother. The story begins in 1945 in Topaz , where the author's mother can't sleep one night because of anxiety about her son, who is serving in Europe. She later finds out that he was wounded in battle that night. Later, they arrange for his transfer to a hospital in the U.S, deciding on one near the family home in California. When they leave camp and return home, she is able to visit him at the hospital. However, she later dies in her sleep before her son is released. After her death, the author and his brother hear tapping on the window of the room in which she died, which they interpret as her message to them. Written by Mori in 1947, the story was first published in his 1979 short story collection, The Chauvinist and Other Stories and reprinted …

The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Power of the past, Injustice, Quest for discovery, Immigrant experience
Widely available

Documentary film produced by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) in 2012 that provides an overview on the internment of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i during World War II—both those held in camps in the continental U.S. and those held in Hawai'i camps—as well as contemporary efforts to preserve the Hawai'i sites today.

The Untold Story of Ralph Carr and the Japanese: The Fate of 3 Japanese-Americans and the Internment (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
Available

Japanese-produced documentary film on Colorado Governor Ralph Carr and his embrace of Japanese Americans during World War II, along with the experiences of three Japanese Americans affected in different ways by his stance.

Upon Their Shoulders (book)

Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Change versus tradition, Desire to escape, Disillusionment and dreams, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Limited availability

Novel centering on a Japanese American family in Hawai'i that may have been the first English-language published novel by a Japanese American about the Japanese American experience. Beginning with immigration and sugar plantations , the novel ends in the World War II era, addressing issues of internment, loyalty, and multiculturalism.

Uprooted: Japanese American Farm Labor Camps during World War II (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
History
Displacement, Necessity of work
Available

Traveling photographic exhibition on Japanese Americans who left the concentration camps on short term leave to work as farm laborers in the summers of 1942 and 1943. The exhibition features forty-five photographs by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee , who photographed farm labor camps that housed the Japanese Americans, including one in Nyssa , Oregon. The exhibition also includes a short video that include interviews with several Japanese Americans who worked as farm laborers.

Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience during World War II (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 9-12
Young adult
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
Widely available

Acclaimed overview work on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans by professional historian and prolific children's book author Albert Marrin.

Valley of the Heart (play)

Plays
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama, History
Change versus tradition, Everlasting love, Family – blessing or curse, Love and sacrifice, Patriotism – positive side or complications

Play by Luis Valdez centered on two farm families—one Japanese American and one Mexican American—in Cupertino, California, during World War II.

Valor with Honor (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, War
War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism – real and perceived, Evils of racism
Available

Documentary film by Burt Takeuchi that tells the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . Eschewing a narrator, the film is built around the thirty-five interviews with veterans Takeuchi conducted and also includes brief reenactments of battle scenes that were shot at Sequoia Paintball Park in Santa Cruz, California. Valor With Honor tells the story in largely chronological fashion, starting with prewar life, the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the roundup of Japanese Americans on the West Coast before getting to induction and basic training, combat in Italy, the rescue of the Lost Battalion , the liberation of Dachau sub camps, and the return to postwar society. Much of the running time focuses on the Rescue of the Lost Battalion and includes interviews with members of the 141st, the men who were rescued. The 86-minute film was completed in 2010 and has been screened widely across …

The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942-1945 (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art, Displacement, Injustice
Limited availability

The first-ever national exhibition of more than 130 paintings and other works of art produced by Japanese American artists during their incarceration in the World War II American concentration camps, timed to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 , which authorized the mass incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. The exhibition was curated by Karin Higa and jointly coordinated by the Japanese American National Museum , the UCLA Wight Art Gallery, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It first opened at the Wight Art Gallery in Los Angeles on October 13, 1992, and ran until December 6, 1992, then subsequently traveled to the San Jose Museum of Art (January 15-April 10, 1994), Salt Lake Art Center (July 1994), Honolulu Academy of Arts (September 1994), and the Queens Museum New York (May 11-July 16, 1995).

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 .

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