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240 articles
Racial Profiling (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8
- Grades 7-8
- Young Adult
- Evils of racism, Fear of other, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Book for middle schoolers that looks at both sides of the issue of racial profiling. One chapter focuses on the World War II exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Grades 3-5
- Children's, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Role of women
- Widely available
Children's novel aimed at ages 8 to 11 by Sandra Dallas centering on the wartime incarceration experience of the Itano family at the Tallgrass, Colorado, camp, featuring as its protagonist twelve year old Tomi Itano. The book is a sequel of sorts to Dallas' adult novel, Tallgrass (2007).
Reluctant Samurai: Memoirs of an Urban Planner (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Family – blessing or curse, Fulfillment, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
- Limited availability
Memoir by a Nisei man that recounts his agricultural upbringing, his time in American concentration camps, and his postwar career as an urban planner who was a key figure in the redevelopment of downtown Los Angeles.
Remembering Manzanar: Life in a Japanese Relocation Camp (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8
- Grades 7-8
- Young Adult, History
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past, Reunion, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Book for younger children about the Manzanar concentration camp.
Roy Sato, New Neighbor (book)
- Books
- Widely available
Children's book published in 1955 centering on Roy Sato, a ten-year-old Sansei , in the months after his move from Little Tokyo in Los Angeles to a nearby suburban area. Despite its descriptions of racism and its publication just ten years after the end of World War II, the book makes no mention of the wartime exclusion and confinement of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast, presumably including the Sato family.
Sayonara Slam (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Power of silence, Power of the past, Family – blessing or curse
- Widely available
The sixth book in Naomi Hirahara's Mas Arai Mysteries series finds the Kibei gardener caught up in unraveling the mysterious death of a Japanese journalist covering the World Baseball Classic in Los Angeles. As in the other books in the series, Mas's Hiroshima hibakusha past and the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans play key roles in the plot.
Seki-nin (Duty Bound) (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Convention and rebellion, Displacement, Facing darkness, Family – blessing or curse, Power of tradition
- Available
Novel by George Nakagawa about a Nisei stranded in Japan during World War II.
Sideways: Memoir of a Misfit (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Memoir of a young Nisei woman who was born in the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp. The story focuses on her often strained relationships with her parents, grandparents, and eight siblings in 1950s Chicago.
Silent Honor (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Romance
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Everlasting love, Evils of racism, Loss of innocence, Will to survive
- Widely available
Novel by bestselling author Danielle Steel about a Japanese American family in the San Francisco Bay Area and their wartime odyssey in American concentration camps, highlighting a romance between a niece recently arrived from Japan and a white college professor.
Silver Like Dust (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Memoir published in 2011 centering on the author's grandmother, who slowly tells the author the story of her life and incarceration at Heart Mountain , over the course of several visits with the author. Her grandmother's detailed narrative from the perspective of a young woman of twenty when the war breaks out—the happy childhood in Los Angeles, the shock of war and forced removal, meeting her husband at the Pomona Assembly Center , marrying in camp, and having her first child there, before resettling in Seabrook Farms , New Jersey—is contrasted with the author's vastly different life as a contemporary young woman of roughly the same age when she begins the project. Having grown up in Pennsylvania, apart from her grandmother in Florida, the visits also allow the two women to really get to know each other for the first time. The book includes various brief historical snippets that provide …
Sleeping on Potatoes: A Lumpy Adventure from Manzanar to the Corporate Tower (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Desire to escape, Displacement, Facing reality, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Social mobility
- Limited availability
Memoir of a Nisei, from his early childhood as the son of a violent father and a loving mother, his experience incarcerated at Manzanar , his career as a successful physicist at Honeywell, and his years after retiring.
Snakeskin Shamisen (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Lost honor, Power of the past
- Widely available
The third novel in Naomi Hirahara's "Mas Arai Mysteries" series finds the gardener/detective back in Southern California in 2002 where he tackles a murder case in the Okinawan American community.
So Far from the Sea (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 3-5
- Children's
- Change versus tradition, Death – inevitable or tragedy, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Children's picture book by Eve Bunting about a Japanese American family's pilgrimage to Manzanar in 1972.
Song of Anger: Tales of Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Darkness and light, Displacement, Injustice
- Available
Reflections and observations of a social worker in Tule Lake segregation center during World War II.
Southland (book)
- Books
- Widely available
Southland is a critically acclaimed 2003 novel by Nina Revoyr set primarily in the multiracial Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles. Part multi–generational family saga, part murder mystery, and part coming of age novel, the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans affects several characters directly and is a background part of the world of the novel's key figures, both African American and Japanese American.
Stanley Hayami, Nisei Son (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Book built around the wartime diary and letters of Stanley Hayami that document his incarceration at the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp and his military service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team .
Starting from Loomis and Other Stories (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Power of the past
- Widely available
Memoir by playwright, poet, actor, and librarian Hiroshi Kashiwagi in the form of twenty-five stories, most of them first-person vignettes from various periods of his life. Edited by Tim Yamamura, Starting from Loomis was published by the University of Colorado Press in 2013 as part of the George and Sakaye Aratani Nikkei in the Americas Series.
Stone, Bow, Prayer (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Poetry
- Available
Sansei poet Amy Uyematsu's fourth book of poetry, organized in twelve sections, each representing a month in the ancient Chinese lunar calendar that Japan adopted in the seventh century A.D.
Strawberry Yellow (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Injustice
- Widely available
The fifth book in Naomi Hirahara's Mas Arai Mysteries series finds the Kibei gardener back in his hometown of Watsonville for the funeral of a relative. But the apparent murder of an anti-GMO activist and the suggestion by his widow that the deceased relative may have been murdered plunge Mas into another mystery.
Suitcase Sefton and the American Dream (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Everlasting love, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Injustice
- Widely available
Novel by Jay Feldman about a New York Yankees scout who discovers a hot Nisei pitching prospect in an American concentration camp during World War II.
Summer of the Big Bachi (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Fiction, Mystery
- Facing darkness, Greed as downfall, Power of silence, Power of the past
- Widely available
Mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara that was the first to feature her Kibei hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) gardener protagonist Mas Arai.
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.
Sylvia and Aki (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Grades 3-5
- Historical Fiction, Children's
- =Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Rights - individual or societal
- Widely available
Chapter book for children by Winifred Conkling centering on the the Mendezes and the Munemitsus, the two families behind the landmark Mendez v. Westminster school desegregation case.
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.