Browse > Place > Los Angeles, California

54 articles

1
2
3

Doka B-100 (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Character – destruction, building up, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Working class struggles
Widely available

Short story by Ernest Nagamatsu on the difficult adjustment to civilian life of a group of World War II veterans. Written in the first person voice of an ex-GI named Hamamoto in 1954, "Doka B-100" coveys both Hamamoto's alienation and the welcoming embrace of Little Tokyo Los Angeles . Estranged from his domineering father because of the way he left the service (despite serving heroically in the 442nd , he quit before his time was up) and his choice of social work as an occupation, Hamamoto's wife had decided to go back to her family in Chicago with their daughter to get away from the arguments. Finding a small apartment in Little Tokyo and a part time job in a diner, he finds a niche in starting to counsel the veterans who would gather in a Little Tokyo pool hall. That work eventually leads to a paying job with the …

Flowers from Mariko (book)

Books
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Children's, Historical Fiction
Growing up – pain or pleasure, Heartbreak of betrayal, Optimism – power or folly, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Working class struggles
Widely available

Picture book for children about a Japanese American family's World War II incarceration and difficulties in restarting their lives after the war, told from the perspective of a young girl of about nine of ten. Mariko, her little sister Emi, and their parents live in Los Angeles before the war, where their father works as a gardener. When they are forced to leave, he leaves his gardening truck and equipment with their landlord. When Japanese Americans are allowed to return to the West Coast in 1945, the family makes plans to return. However their father finds that his truck and equipment have been sold, and the former landlord is nowhere to be found. The family is forced to live in a government-run trailer park upon their return, and her father is unable to find work. One day, he finds some old equipment in the trash, along with some flower seeds. …

From a Different Shore: An American Identity (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Change versus tradition, Importance of community, Power of the past, Reunion
Limited availability

Documentary film produced by Great Britain's The Open University that examines the Japanese American community by focusing on three families in Los Angeles.

Ganbatte: Sixty-year Struggle of a Kibei Worker (book)

Books
Memoir
Capitalism - effect on the individual, Convention and rebellion, Empowerment, Important of community, Injustice, Rights - individual and societal, Self-awareness, Working class struggles
Available

Kibei - Nisei labor organizer and communist shares his life story, including his unique experiences during World War II as the husband of a white woman with a mixed-race child incarcerated while he served with the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific Theater.

Gardens of Hope (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Companionship as salvation, Everlasting love, Evils of racism, Loss of innocence, Self-awareness
Widely available

Novel about the short but life changing romance between a young white man and a Nisei man during World War II. The story begins in 2004, as the elderly Jack Henry asks his nephew to drive him to the Manzanar National Historic Site. On the way, he tells the nephew the story of his connection to the place. As the story begins in Los Angeles the fall of 1942, Jack seems to have everything: a loving family, a smart and attractive fiancée, and good prospects for a career as a teacher. However as a closeted gay man, he is confused and unhappy. Drawn to Pershing Park downtown, he has a series of furtive sexual encounters with other men before meeting Hiro, a handsome young Nisei. Their affair is immediately different and deeper than the others. When the outbreak of war separates them, Jack impulsively decides to become a teacher at …

Heiji (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Female roles, Injustice, Power of the past
No availability

Short story by Jeff Tsuyoshi Matsuda about a disheveled elderly Nisei widower who goes to a empty field in his Westchester, California, neighborhood every day for reasons that no one can figure out. In slowly revealing the reason for his quest, Heiji Taguma's wartime family history is revealed. His family had farmed twenty acres in the area before the war, but lost their crops and their farm in the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Heiji's father Masu was among the Issei arrested by the FBI and was taken to the Bismarck , North Dakota internment camp, eventually rejoining his family at Manzanar . But he returned a broken man: while Heiji resettled in Chicago , he refused to leave Manzanar and died there just after the end of the war. Heiji's odd ritual seemed to have been triggered by the death of his wife Keiko, who …

Ralph Story's Los Angeles: Little Tokyo (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly, Self-reliance, Social mobility
No availability

Episode of the popular 1960s weekly television show featuring the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. Filmed largely in Little Tokyo, the program covers both the history of the neighborhood and its then current status and includes a discussion of the wartime incarceration of its population.

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.

Reunion (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Lost love, Rebirth, Reunion
No availability

Short story by Hisaye Yamamoto centering on a Nisei man named Tak who attends a pilgrimage to Poston , where he had been incarcerated during the war. The story begins with his noticing a striking woman at the reunion dressed in buckskin; he wonders if she is Native American. A visit to the memorial at the site conjures memories of his family's wartime experience: removed from Los Angeles, they left Poston to resettle in Chicago ; his older sister had left earlier on her own to study nursing in Cleveland. He went to high school in Chicago and to college back in Los Angeles, eventually marrying and raising three daughters. But after his wife's death just a year prior, he found himself alone. On the bus ride home, he is surprised to find the buckskin woman on the same bus. She sits across the aisle from him, and he overhears …

Alice and the Bear (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Companionship as salvation, Desire to escape, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Power of the past
Widely available

Short story by Kiyoshi Parker about an old woman whose trip to a Little Tokyo store with her great-granddaughter brings back memories of her camp experience. Alice Miyamoto visits Little Tokyo in Los Angeles for the first time in thirty years with her family. After lunch, her daughter suggests they go visit the Go For Broke Monument . But on the way, her four-year-old great-granddaughter drags her into a store and picks up a stuffed Totoro toy. Alice is immediately reminded of a stuffed bear she had as a child of about the same age that was her constant companion when she was in an unspecified concentration camp.

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.

American Dreams (book)

Books
Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Historical Fiction, Children's
Evils of racism, Coming of age, Injustice, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Available

Chapter book for children about two eleven-year-old girls in Hollywood, one white and one Japanese American, in the weeks just before and just after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

To Be Takei (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Empowerment, Everlasting love, Injustice, Optimism – power or folly, Rights - individual or societal
Widely available

Documentary film that profiles actor George Takei and his husband and manager Brad Takei, capturing both their pasts and their daily lives today.

The Legacy of Heart Mountain (film)

Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Will to survive
Widely available

Documentary that explores various human interest stories centered on the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp. Produced and written by KABC-TV (Los Angeles) news anchorman David Ono and documentary filmmaker Jeff MacIntyre, The Legacy of Heart Mountain aired on local and national television and won three local area Emmy Awards.

When Your Body Has Been Rolled in Thorns (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Evils of racism, Facing reality, Loss of innocence, Will to survive
Widely available

Short story by Ferris Takahashi about a Japanese American family leaving a concentration camp to return to their old home in Los Angeles. Told from the perspective of a college educated Nisei husband and father of two young children, the story begins as they gather up their possessions and prepare to leave the camp. Yosh, a friend who had returned earlier and was able to reestablish his business, greets them at the train station. When they return to their home, they find it trashed and vandalized, with all the furniture gone. They also learn that the Buddhist temple in which they had stored other possessions had burned down. Yosh and his family offer to put them up until they can fix their house. Returning to look more closely at the house after dinner, the man and his Issei mother find racist graffiti. His mother assures him that they will rebound.

Who's Going to Pay for These Donuts, Anyway? (film)

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

Experimental documentary film by Janice Tanaka that centers on her finding and reuniting with a father and an uncle—one diagnosed as mentally ill and the other conventionally successful—neither of whom she had seen since childhood.

Words, Weavings and Songs (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Role of women, Expression through art, Power of the past
Widely available

2002 documentary film profiling three Nisei women who drew on their experiences as teenagers in American concentration camps to pursue different types of creative expression both in camp and afterwards. The three artists featured are writer, playwright, and painter Wakako Yamauchi , weaver Momo Nagano , and singer Mary Nomura . A project of the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum , Words, Weavings & Songs was produced and directed by John Esaki and was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .

Yukiko and Carlos (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Everlasting love, Family – blessing or curse, Power of tradition, Working class struggles, Youth and beauty
Widely available

Love story by Rubén "Funkahuatl" Guevara about a Chicano young man and a Nisei young woman that begins in 1941. Written in the first person voice of Carlos Gutiérrez, the story begins when he spots Yukiko Nakamura dancing at a bon dance while he is walking home from work. At Roosevelt High School, he approaches her, and they become friends, with each learning about the other's culture. Carlos aspires to be a boxing champion and is estranged from his alcoholic father. He soon becomes a regular at Yukiko's family's restaurant and begins taking lessons in the martial arts from Yukiko's father, eventually winning his respect and the right to date Yukiko. But the coming of war and the forced removal of Japanese Americans separate the couple, as Yukiko and her family are sent to Manzanar . Carlos eventually becomes a war hero by applying the lessons he learned from Mr. …

Why She Left Us (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Family – blessing or curse, Motherhood, Power of the past, Role of women
Widely available

A 1999 novel by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto that follows the Okada family from the 1920s to the 1990s and includes their incarceration at the Santa Anita Assembly Center and Amache as well as the experiences of two Nisei who serve in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . The novel is structured as a series of vignettes told from the points of view of four characters. Why She Left Us was honored with an American Book Award in 2000.

Burma Rifles: A Story of Merrill's Marauders (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Historical Fiction, Children's
Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice, Vulnerability of the strong, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Limited availability

Book for young readers by Frank Bonham centering on a Nisei intelligence soldier in Burma during World War II. Published in 1960, it is among the first children's books to depict the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Both Alike in Dignity (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Evils of racism, Reunion, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Short story by Chester Sakamoto about an elderly Holocaust survivor who mistakenly gets off the bus in Little Tokyo , where he meets an elderly Nisei man. One Sunday, on his weekly visit to a friend in Pasadena, Mr. Muncznik gets off the bus too early and ends up in Little Tokyo. Sitting to get his bearings, he finds himself next to a statue of a Japanese man. Friendly Mr. Sata stops and explains that it is a statue of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who risked his career and safety to help thousands of Jews escape Lithuania during the war. Conversation ensues about each man's wartime experience—Mr. Sata had lived in Little Tokyo before the war and had been sent with his family to Heart Mountain —revealing a startling coincidence.

Blood Hina (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Fiction, Mystery
Family – blessing or curse, Hazards of passing judgment, Heroism – real and perceived, Love and sacrifice
Widely available

The fourth book in the Mas Arai Mysteries series by Naomi Hirahara finds the Kibei gardener coming to the aid of his best friend, Haruo Mukai, whose impending wedding is interrupted by accusations of theft and by his sudden disappearance.

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.

Some Lines for a Younger Brother... (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Death – inevitable or tragedy, Disillusionment and dreams, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Limited availability

First person recollection of the author's younger brother centering on the impact the World War II incarceration had on him. The youngest of eight children, Tets was doted on by his older siblings, but devastated when his father died when he was eight. A few years later, he had become a demoralized teenager in Manzanar who began skipping high school classes upon his return to Los Angeles after the war. Joining the army to see the world, he is almost at the end of his hitch when the Korean War breaks out. Sent into combat, he is killed in action. Years later, the author recalls attending the first Manzanar Pilgrimage and seeing the image of Tets as a child once again.

Shirley Temple, Hotcha-cha (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Displacement, Heartbreak of betrayal, Isolation, Wisdom of experience
Available

Short story by Wakako Yamauchi about a Nisei strandee couple and their difficulties both in wartime Japan and in the resettlement era U.S. Told in the first-person voice of Mie, the story begins in 1939 when Mie is seventeen. As was the case for a sizable minority of Nisei youth, she had been sent to Japan for her education, having arrived there three years prior. She attends a boarding school and spends holidays with the Kodamas, a wealthy childless couple who are family friends. On a holiday, she meets Jobo Endo, a fellow Nisei, who is in Japan attending college. Courtship ensues. Recognizing the difficulties they would face in Japan as the war heats up, Jobo suggests that Mie ask the Kodamas for money to return to the U.S. However, the Kodamas had hoped to marry off Mie to a grand nephew. Though they consent to Jobo and Mie getting …

1
2
3