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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.
Resettled Roots: Legacies of Japanese Americans in Chicago (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Importance of community, Power of silence, Rebirth
- Available
Documentary film on the evolution of the Japanese American community in Chicago . Directors Anna Takada and Maria Pimentel tell the story using a generational framework with a brief prologue on Japanese immigration and the prewar Issei era and a longer segment on the wartime roundup and incarceration centered on the Nisei , before turning to Nisei and Sansei recollections of resettlement to Chicago and growing up there after the war. Many of the Sansei recall their parents' silence about their wartime experiences. The last segment focuses on Yonsei and recent activism featuring 2019 footage from an all camps reunion in Chicago and on a protest march that saw Chicago Japanese Americans drawing on their history to protest immigrant detention and deportation today.
12-1-A (play)
- Plays
- Available
A play by Wakako Yamauchi that was first produced in 1982. Set in the concentration camp in Poston , Arizona—the same camp the author was incarcerated in—from May 1942 to July 1943, the play follows several Japanese American families at Poston as their characters grapple with the loyalty questionnaire , military service, and possible resettlement . The title of the play refers to the camp address of the Tanaka family, block 12, barracks 1, unit A. Yamauchi wrote the play while the Rockefeller Playwright in Residence at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. It premiered on March 11, 1982, at East West Players in Los Angeles, the third of four plays in their "Internment Camp Series". Subsequent productions include Asian American Theater Co, San Francisco (1982); Kumu Kahua Theatre, Honolulu (1990); University of California, Los Angeles (1992); and California State University, Los Angeles (2012).
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.
Rohwer (play)
- Plays
Play by Lionelle Hamanaka that premiered in March 1982, as part of the New York based Pan Asian Repertory Theatre's 1981–82 season dedicated to plays on the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The story follows a Japanese American family's incarceration odyssey at the Arkansas concentration camp , focusing on the family patriarch as his traditional authority is stripped away by his prior internment and camp dynamics. The playwright, a native of New York born after the war, learned about her family's incarceration experience in junior high school. The play ran from March 12 to March 21, 1982. The two other plays in the Pan Asian Repertory series were Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's Behind Enemy Lines and Richard France's Station J .
"Wase Time!": A Teen's Memoir of Gila River Internment Camp (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Role of men
- Limited availability
First person memoir by Kenneth A. Tashiro of his and his family's forced removal and incarceration at the Gila River , Arizona, concentration camp. After a brief introduction that introduces Tashiro's family, the story begins on Pearl Harbor day when Kenneth—nicknamed "Iggy"—hears about the start of the war after exiting an Abbott and Costello movie. He and his family move from Los Angeles to Del Rey in an attempt to avoid incarceration, but they are eventually removed from Sanger to Gila in August of 1942. His father, Kenji Tashiro, is a journalist, who becomes the editor of the camp newspaper , before leaving to join the army at age 37. His mother, eight months pregnant at the time of the removal, stays behind for a time, rejoining the family later with the baby girl. Twelve when he entered the camp, Tashiro's perspective is purely that of an active teenager, so …
39 Months at Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Empowerment, Importance of community, Injustice
- Available
The diary of a white staff member at Tule Lake offers his take on the tumultuous events there after it was made a segregation center .
442: For the Future (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Role of men, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Limited availability
Docu-drama by Patricia Kinaga that tells the story of the Japanese American World War II experience with a focus on the exploits of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , through the experiences of four characters.
A Question of Loyalty/The Betrayed (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Limited availability
Play authored by Nisei playwright Hiroshi Kashiwagi set in Tule Lake and centered on the dilemmas brought on by the loyalty questionnaire . The main characters are Tak Fujimoto, a country boy loosely based on the playwright, and Grace Tamura, a sophisticated city girl from Seattle, who fall in love in the concentration camp. But they are divided by the loyalty questions and go their separate ways. The play's second act is set forty years later, when Grace, a widowed redress activist from Chicago, visits Tak, a divorced farmer in Fresno, prior to a camp reunion.
A Session at Tak's Place (short story)
- Short Stories
- Adult
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Companionship as salvation, Importance of community, Optimism – power or folly
- Widely available
Short story by Manzen (Tom Arima) about four old Nisei men discussing the future of the Japanese American community and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Tak, a 65-year-old retiree, wakes up one morning with an uneasy feeling after a late night JACL meeting the previous evening. His close friend Nobe, a JACL lifer, drops by to talk about the meeting, and they are soon joined by two more friends, Joe and Mits. The four talk about the role they and the JACL should take in the implementation of the recently passed Civil Liberties Act of 1988 , what to make of a recent JACL resolution to investigate the organization's actions regarding the so-called " No-No Boys ," and the role of the JACL. After a spirited discussion, Tak feels much better and is grateful for the men's friendship.
A Stone Cried Out: The True Story of Simple Faith in Difficult Days
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Change versus tradition, Faith versus doubt, Forgiveness, Identity crisis, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice
- Available
A Christian minister reflects on his life, including the difficult years he and his family spent in wartime concentration camps.
A Taste for Strawberries: The Independent Journey of Nisei Farmer Manabi Hirasaki (book)
- Books
- Memoir
- Available
The memoir of Manabi Hirasaki , a successful Nisei farmer, with reflections on experiences ranging from his childhood working on his father's farms, his family's " voluntary evacuation " to Grand Junction, Colorado, voluntary service in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team , and his successes in the strawberry industry after World War II.
Question 27, Question 28 (play)
- Plays
Two-act documentary play by Chay Yew that was first produced in 2004. The play tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and its aftermath through the voices of a variety of Japanese American and non-Japanese American women. All of the play's lines come from "interviews, transcripts and testimonials" by women who lived through that experience. The cast includes four characters, three Asian and one Caucasian, who read the lines, with the real life figure from whose testimony they come from first identified. Among the many women whose words are used are Yuri Kochiyama , Monica Sone , Mary Tsukamoto , Yoshiko Uchida , and many others, including some non-Japanese Americans such as teacher Eleanor Gerard Sekerak and Eleanor Roosevelt . The title of the play comes from two contentious questions on the so-called loyalty questionnaire administered to the Japanese American detainees …
Relics from Camp: A Video Journey (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Power of the past, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
Companion film to art installation of the same name produced and directed by artist Kristine Yuko Aono and narrated in her first-person voice. Aono explains the origins of the projects and includes footage of her and her family visiting various former concentration camp sites to collect dirt and artifacts as well as installation of the exhibition in three venues. The film also features three Nisei who contributed objects to the installation talking about the significance of those objects.
Relocation, Arkansas: Aftermath of Incarceration (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Evils of racism, Power of the past, Reunion, Rights - individual or societal
- Limited availability
Documentary film by Vivienne Schiffer about the legacy of the Rohwer , Arkansas, concentration camp that focuses on the incarceration's impact on the Sansei and the role of a local mayor in preserving Rohwer's history.
Relocations and Revisions: The Japanese-American Internment Reconsidered (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Displacement, Injustice, Evils of Racism
- Limited availability
Exhibition at the Long Beach Museum of Art featuring work inspired by the wartime expulsion and incarceration by contemporary Japanese American artists, most of whom were too young to experience the concentration camps firsthand. Opening on May 10, 1992, Relocations and Revisions also included a program of videos and well as a catalog with both print and video components.
Relocations and Revisions: The Japanese-American Internment Reconsidered (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Expression through art, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Companion video to the 1992 exhibition of art inspired by the wartime exclusion and incarceration at the Long Beach Museum of Art that features interviews with the mostly Sansei artists featured in the exhibition.
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 …
A Star Is Something to Steer By (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Losing hope
- Widely available
Short story by Mataileen Larkin Ramsdell about the contentious but affectionate relationship between a white high school teacher in Rohwer and an intelligent but cynical student. A young teacher from Wisconsin, Eve Erickson is immediately drawn to Joe Moriyama, the smallest boy in 11th grade homeroom class, who is constantly challenging her by pointing out the contradictions between the American creed and the treatment of Japanese Americans. In one instance, he tells her about a girl in her class who had her family farm registered in her name to get around the alien land law , but who now found herself the target of an escheat case upon the death of her father. Over time Joe and Eve come to like and respect each other. When Nisei are deemed eligible for the draft in 1944, Joe and other boys in her class are drafted, but he is uncharacteristically silent. He …
Starting from Loomis (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Injustice
- Widely available
Autobiographical short story by Hiroshi Kashiwagi that traces his life from his childhood on farms in the Loomis, California, area, his family's forced removal and incarceration at the Marysville Assembly Center (which Kashiwagi refers to as "Arboga," an alternative name) and Tule Lake , and his decision to answer "no-no" to the loyalty questionnaire both out of anger and protest and in alignment with the rest of his family. While describing the difficult conditions of concentration camp life, the narrator—who was two years out of high school at the time—takes his first tentative steps in the world of theater and literature while in camp. His father's absence from the family from prior to the war due to tuberculosis looms large. Written from the perspective of an old man looking back at his youth, the story ends with the lifelong ramifications of his wartime incarceration and his "no-no boy" status.
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.
Starting Over: Japanese Americans After the War (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Rebirth, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film centering on the return of Japanese Americans to their homes after their exclusion and incarceration in concentration camps.
Station J (play)
- Plays
Epic three-hour play by Richard France on the wartime exclusion, incarceration, and return of the Shigeta family told in three acts, each consisting of six scenes and a prologue and a epilogue. The play was part of the 1981–82 seasons of both East West Players in Los Angeles and the Pan Asian Repertory Theater in New York; both Asian American theater companies devoted that season to plays on the Japanese American World War II incarceration.
Aleut Evacuation: The Untold War Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
Documentary film that tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of the Aleut people from their ancestral Alaskan homes to detention camps in southwest Alaska during World War II. Based on interviews with surviving inmates and their descendants and on historical photographs and documents, Aleut Evacuation proceeds in largely chronological fashion, starting with a brief portrait of the Aleut community prior to the war, then covering their forcible removal by the U.S. government—ostensibly for their own protection in the face of possible Japanese attack—and their subsequent incarceration in several different camps. Focusing first on the largest camp, Funter Bay, which held those from the Pribilof Islands, it also considers a camp on Killisnoo Island where those from Atka were held, along with Ward Lake, where those from smaller villages were incarcerated. Former inmates remember the poor and harsh conditions in the camps and the rampant health problems they …