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685 articles
When You're Smiling: The Deadly Legacy of Internment (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Power of the past
- Available
Autobiographical film by Janice D. Tanaka about growing up Sansei in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s amidst parental silence about their wartime incarceration. It was one of several films about aspects of the incarceration funded by the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund .
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.
White Road of Thorns: Journalist's Diary—Trials and Tribulations of the Japanese American Internment During World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Will to survive
- Available
Wartime diary of Issei journalist and Japanese language school teacher Hisa Aoki that covers the period prior to her return to Japan on the second voyage of the Gripsholm . Originally published in Japan in 1953, it was translated into English by Archie Miyamoto at the behest of Aoki's elder daughter, Mary Yoko Nakamura.
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.
Why is Preparing Fish a Political Act? (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Biography
- Convention and rebellion, Loss of innocence, Power of silence, Power of words, Role of women, Self-awareness
- Available
Short documentary film by Russell Leong that profiles Sansei poet Janice Mirikitani . Mirikitani reads several of her poems (from the collections Awake in the River and Shedding Silence ) and talks about her grandmother's resourcefulness; her rejection of her Asian heritage as a young college student and her first husband and daughter; the impact of the Asian American Movement; and her involvement with Gilde Memorial Church and her second husband Cecil Williams. In the final segment of the film, Mirikitani talks about the impact of the Japanese American incarceration on her family and on the community as a whole and reads the poem "We, the Dangerous."
Woman from Hiroshima (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Novel by Toshio Mori written in the first-person voice of an Issei woman telling her life story to two grandchildren shortly after World War II.
Woman With a Blue Pencil (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Mystery, Historical Fiction
- Character – destruction, building up, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Disillusionment and dreams, Evils of racism, Heroism – real and perceived, Manipulation
- Widely available
Novel about a pulp mystery novel written by a young Nisei as World War II breaks out, his interactions with a sometimes overzealous editor, and his protest in the form of an unpublished manuscript centering on the Nisei private detective he was forced to remove from the novel.
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 .
Wyoming Chronicle: Aura Newlin—Japanese Americans in Wyoming (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Aura Newlin, a Northwest College faculty member and board member of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, talks about her family history as a fourth generation Japanese American and a fourth generation Wyomingite, then takes the viewer on a tour of the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , telling the story of the forced removal and incarceration and of the Heart Mountain concentration camp. The last third of video is a sit-down interview between producer Craig Blumenshine and Newlin that covers her students' knowledge of and reaction to the incarceration story, the role and purpose of the museum and the relevance of the story today and its place in Wyoming history.
Yamashita (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Animation, History
- Coming of age, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Facing darkness, Family – blessing or curse
- Widely available
Short animated film by Hayley Foster that tells the incarceration story from the perspective of a girl of about eight: her removal from home with her parents and grandfather, the hardships they face at Manzanar (meals in communal mess halls, the barbed wire fences, and saying the pledge of allegiance in a barrack classroom), and her embrace of Japanese culture that her mother discourages, but that her beloved grandfather supports. The hand drawn animation is mostly in black-and-white, with strategic bursts of color.
Yankee Samurai (film)
- Films and Video
Israeli produced film on the exploits of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team told through archival footage, interviews, and contemporary footage of battle locations, including scenes of veterans returning to the Vosges Mountains in France for the unveiling of a monument. The 50-minute film was written and directed by Katriel Schory. Film historian Glen M. Mimura refers to it as one of "the two most prominent internment documentaries of the 1980s," along with Loni Ding's The Color of Honor . [1]
You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature-length documentary film on singer and actor Jack Soo . Based on interviews with friends and colleagues along with many clips from his film and television appearances, You Don't Know Jack also covers his time at Tanforan and Topaz during World War II.
You Who Are 25 (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Circle of life, Power of the past, Role of men
- No availability
Short story by Ted Tajima that recounts the arduous birth of a boy in a concentration camp and which contemplates that young man's fate in the very different world of twenty-five years later. Despite the title, the story is written in a third-person voice and does not directly address the young people it is about. Tajima, a high school teacher and frequent contributor to the Rafu Shimpo holiday edition, published the story in the 1967 issue.
A Young American with a Japanese Face (essay)
- Essays
- Widely available
Early first-person account of the issues facing Nisei written by an anonymous Nisei and published in the popular anthology From Many Lands , edited by Louis Adamic , in 1940. The account was based on the life of Charles Kikuchi and adapted by Adamic from Kikuchi's writings.
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. …
Yuri Kochiyama: Passion for Justice (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Empowerment, Importance of community, Working class struggles
- Available
Documentary film profiling Nisei political activist Yuri Kochiyama co-produced and co-directed by Patricia Saunders and Rea Tajiri.
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.
Winter in My Soul (film)
- Films and Video
Documentary film about Heart Mountain produced by KTWO, a commercial TV station based in Casper, Wyoming. Produced in 1986, it was one of the first to focus on a specific camp and was notable for including the story of the draft resistance movement at Heart Mountain. The title comes from a poem written by Heart Mountain inmate Miyuki Aoyama and published in the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel .
Within the Silence (play)
- Plays
Solo multimedia piece that tells the story of one family's wartime incarceration experience. Within the Silence was written by Ken Mochizuki in 1998 and produced by Living Voices, a Seattle-based educational theater company that specializes in solo performances that dramatize important historical events aimed at secondary school college audiences. Within the Silence has been performed over 4,000 times in sixteen states by numerous actors before over 200,000 audience members in schools, corporations, libraries, museums, and other venues across the country. A teacher's guide and bibliography to accompany the piece are available through the Living Voices website.
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.
Without Due Process: A Documentary About America's Concentration Camps (film)
- Films and Video
Documentary film that profiles the wartime incarceration saga of one Japanese American family, the Okamotos, who were held at the Poston , Arizona concentration camp. George Okamoto was forcibly removed with his family from Southern California and served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team while his family was held at Poston. He and his family subsequently resettled in Chicago .
Witness: American Heroes (film)
- Films and Video
Documentary film on the exploits of Nisei soldiers in World War II produced to commemorate their being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011. Produced by Content Media Group for KABC, a Los Angeles television station, the film premiered on KABC in November 2011.
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.
Barbed Wire Baseball (book)
- Books
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
- Children's
- Empowerment, Individual versus society, Will to survive
- Widely available
Children's picture book by Marissa Moss with illustrations by Yuko Shimizu that focuses on the true story of Kenichi Zenimura , an Issei baseball pioneer who builds a baseball field in the Gila River concentration camp.
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.