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113 articles
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.
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.
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 …
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.
Something Strong Within (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement, Will to survive
- Available
Documentary film by pioneering director Robert A. Nakamura crafted out of amateur home movie footage shot in American concentration camps. Nakamura and producer/writer Karen L. Ishizuka produced Something Strong Within for the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) as a companion piece to the exhibition America's Concentration Camps , curated by Ishizuka, which opened on November 11, 1994.
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.
Stories from America's Concentration Camps (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Limited availability
Filmed presentation by members of Nisei VFW Post 8985, based in Sacramento, on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. According to leader Kiyo Sato-Viacrucis , the group had been making such presentations for fourteen years to schools. Joining Sato-Viacrucis are members Kaoru "Kirk" Shibata, Robert Kashiwagi, H. Gary Shiota, Kinya Noguchi, Jim Tanaka, Yoshiro William Matsuhara. The group talk through the core story— Executive Order 9066 and the roundup of Japanese Americans, life in the concentration camps, volunteering for the army from the camps, and the aftermath of the war, ending with the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 —taking turns and often using photographs or other objects to tell the story. The group also tells the story of the formation of their group: how as Nisei veterans, they were not allowed to join existing Veterans of Foreign Affairs groups and thus had to form their own. The roughly …
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.
The Block Manager: A True Story of Love in the Midst of Japanese American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Self-preservation, Displacement
- Available
Incarceration memoir of a Nisei woman from Stockton, California, who becomes a block manager at the Stockton and Rohwer detention camps and who meets and marries her husband at the latter. The narrative follow the couple to Tule Lake and postwar Japan.
The Evacuation Diary of Hatsuye Egami (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Non Fiction
- Chaos and order, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Inner versus outer strength, Motherhood, Self-awareness
- Available
Translation of the wartime diary of Hatsuye Egami, who carefully describes her experiences and observations while incarcerated at Tulare Assembly Center during World War II.
The Experience of Japanese Americans in the United States: A Teacher Resource Manual (curricula)
- Curricula
- Pre-K, Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Injustice, Knowledge versus ignorance, Overcoming - fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
The Advisory Council to the Ethnic Heritage Project of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) developed, printed and distributed this manual in 1975. It was one of the first efforts to provide K–12 instructional materials about the history and achievements of Japanese Americans in the United States. The aim of the manual was to counter existing teaching materials which contained information that "portray(ed) persons of Japanese ancestry in a distorted or stereotypic fashion" (page 6). In addition, the authors sought to see Japanese Americans represented in the educational system's instructional framework of cultural pluralism.
The Kikuchi Diary: Chronicle from an American Concentration Camp (book)
- Books
- Historical Nonfiction
- Coming of age, Displacement, Facing reality, Family - blessing or curse, Self-awareness
- Available
The diary of Charles Kikuchi , a Nisei , and his observations about the chaos for Japanese Americans in the Bay Area after the bombing of Pearl Harbor as well as life in Tanforan Assembly Center .
The Red Pines: Japanese-Americans on Bainbridge Island (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Displacement, Power of tradition, Rebirth
- Widely available
Short film about the Japanese American community of Bainbridge Island, Washington . The twelve-minute film produced and directed by Lucy Ostrander provides a brief history of the community going back to the late 1800s, covers their wartime eviction and incarceration, and includes scenes from a contemporary mochitsuki , the traditional pounding of rice cakes to mark the new year. The story is largely told through Junkoh Harui, a Nisei , who recounts his Japanese immigrant father's arrival on Bainbridge to work in a sawmill before starting a number of businesses, including a store and Bainbridge Gardens. Other interviewees include Fumiko Hayashida, a woman famous for a photograph of her and her young daughter being forcibly removed during World War II; Hayashida later became the subject of another short documentary by Ostrander and her production partner Don Sellers. The title of the film comes from the Japanese red pine trees that …
Though I Be Crushed: The Wartime Experiences of a Buddhist Minister (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Displacement, Immigrant experience, Injustice
- Limited availability
Translated memoir of an Issei Buddhist priest focusing on his wartime incarceration at several camps.
Through the Lens of Russell Lee: Mathias Uchiyama's Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Working class struggles, Displacement
- Widely available
Short documentary film about a Japanese American family that left the Portland Assembly Center to engage in farm labor in eastern Oregon, produced to accompany the traveling exhibition Uprooted: Japanese American Farm Labor Camps during World War II .
To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Importance of community, Love and sacrifice
- Widely available
Famous actor and celebrity recounts some of the most important periods of his life, including his early childhood spent at Rohwer and Tule Lake concentration camps.
The Tragic History of the Japanese-American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8
- Grades 7-8
- Children's, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Overview work on the Japanese American wartime removal and incarceration for middle school audiences that is part of Enslow Publishers' "From Many Cultures, One History" series.
When the Emperor Was Divine: Teacher's Guide (curricula)
- Curricula
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Displacement, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Evils of racism, Injustice
The Information provided in this 10-page guide aims to get students to understand When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka "as both a work of art and a meditation on freedom, identity, and loyalty" (page 2). There is background information about the novel and the author, including excerpts from an interview with Otsuka. The historical information provided about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans was garnered from Lauren Kessler's Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese-American Family (New York, Random House, 1993).
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.
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).
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).
The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Displacement, Beauty of simplicity
- Available
Traveling exhibition highlighting art and craft objects made by incarcerated Japanese Americans in wartime concentration camps. Curated by Delphine Hirasuna and based on the 2005 book of the same name, The Art of Gaman exhibition has traveled to fourteen venues since its debut in 2006.
The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Displacement
- Available
Exhibition of art objects created by Japanese Americans in Rohwer . Mounted in 2011 by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the exhibition was based on the collection of Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel, an art teacher at Rohwer. Vogel bequeathed the objects to McGehee, Arkansas, Mayor Rosalie Santine Gould, who in turn donated the collection to the Butler Center in 2010. The Art of Living included about 125 pieces, ranging from fashion sketches to bird pins to paintings in a wide variety of styles, augmented by photographs of the camp and interview segments with former Rohwer inmates. The project also includes an online version of the exhibition. Among the public programs tied to the exhibition's run were talks by Delphine Hirasuna, author of The Art of Gaman and by Vivienne Schiffer, daughter of Gould and author of the novel Camp Nine , which is set in a Rohwer-like concentration camp.
Whispered Silences: Japanese American Detention Camps, Fifty Years Later (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Displacement, Power of the past
- Available
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibition that featured photographs of former Japanese American concentration camp sites shot during the 1980s by artist Joan Myers. Debuting in 1995, the exhibition traveled around the country for the next four years. It was accompanied by a book published by the University of Washington Press titled Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II , which includes her photographs along with Gary Okihiro's historical/autobiographical overview of Japanese American history.