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146 articles
Internment of Japanese Americans (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8
- Children's
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
- Available
Non-fiction overview of the Japanese American forced removal and incarceration by John L. Wukovits as part of Lucent Books' World History Series. Published in 2013, the 120-page book is intended for students in grades 7 to 10.
Strands (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Evils of racism, Power of the past
- No availability
One-woman show written and performed by D.H. Naomi Quinones that centers on her Japanese Peruvian grandfather's World War II internment story and her discovery of it. Kiichiro Yoshida was a Japanese Peruvian journalist who was one of over 2,000 Japanese Latin Americans interned in the United States during World War II. Separated from his family, he was not allowed to return to Peru at the end of the war and was instead deported to Japan. Quinones tells the story through video, spoken word poetry, and martial arts. Strands was commissioned by the Asian American Theater Company in association with the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program. The sixty-minute performance premiered at he SomARTS Cultural Center in San Francisco on May 16, 2002.
Legacy of the Nisei: Stories of Japanese American Internment and World War II Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived, Role of men, Injustice, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
The second video produced by the San Leandro Public Library built around interviews with Japanese American veterans and former concentration camp inmates from the San Francisco Bay area.
Nasakenai (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Facing reality, Will to survive, Working class struggles
- Limited availability
Short story about an Issei couple in the San Francisco Bay area in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Both work as servants—the husband as a gardener and the wife as a maid—for prominent white families in a wealthy adjacent community and support three children at home, with a son in the army. After the attack, the husband goes to work and is assured by his employer that she will not fire him despite community pressure to do so. But the wife, who has worked for the family of a prominent lawyer for over a decade, is fired, since the lawyer represents a farming organization that supports anti-Japanese actions. An Issei gardener who works for the same family is also fired. Afterwards, the wife visits briefly with the family of the gardener and goes home to work on her garden, vowing that things will be okay.
The Internment of the Japanese (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
- Young Adult, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Overview book by Diane Yancey on the wartime forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans for middle school audiences that is part of Lucent Books "World History Series."
Farewell to Manzanar Educational Kit (curricula)
- Curricula
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Memoir, Drama, History
- Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Injustice, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Power of the past
- Limited availability (kit), widely available (book, teaching guide and film)
In 2003, the Farewell to Manzanar Education Initiative distributed 10,000 copies of the Farewell to Manzanar Educational Kit to California public schools and public libraries. The kit consists of the book, Farewell to Manzanar and Related Readings (1998), a teaching guide for the book (1998), a VHS cassette of the Farewell to Manzanar made-for-television movie (1976) with an additional 35-minute classroom version, and a video study guide (2002). Separate elements of the kit are available for purchase (except for the video study guide).
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.
Witness: Our Brothers' Keepers (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Patriotism - positive side or complications, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived
- No availability
Exhibition on Japanese Americans and Jewish Americans in the military during World War II and their participation in the liberation of Nazi extermination camps organized by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) and the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. Witness debuted in on April 20, 1995, in JANM's Legacy Center Gallery to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau. It closed on August 27, 1995.[1]
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (curricula)
- Curricula
- Family - blessing or curse, Growing up - pain or pleasure, Evils of racism, Lost love
- Widely Available
This teacher's guide supports the instructional use of the bestselling 2009 novel by Jamie Ford about a budding romance between a young Chinese American boy and a Japanese American girl, set in 1942 Seattle as aspects of World War II impact their lives. Appropriate for the middle/high school English/language arts classroom, and because of the setting, also social studies. The guide notes the novel is written at a seventh grade reading level.
Tule Lake (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Importance of community, Individual versus society
- Available
Novel by Edward Miyakawa set in the eponymous concentration camp. Tule Lake was likely the first novel by a Japanese American set in one of the World War II concentration camps to be published when it first appeared in 1979. It was also notable for its unflinching portrayal of life in the most repressive of the camps.
Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir, Children's
- Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Family – blessing or curse, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Power of the past
- Widely available
Incarceration memoir of life at Pinedale Assembly Center, Tule Lake, and Minidoka, by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, a seventeen-year-old Nisei at the time of her and her family's forced removal from their Washington state farm. First published in 2005 by NewSage Press, it was followed by a young reader's edition in 2010.
Manzanar National Historic Site Educator Resources Kit (curricula)
- Curricula
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Self-awareness, War
- Available
"How does identity shape my experience in America?" is the central question which serves to unify the wide range of materials in this resource kit. The kit includes printed materials (lesson plans, reproductions of primary sources, official park brochure, booklet for self-guided tours, Densho brochure), and digital resources (video documentary, electronic field trip, biographical sketches of former inmates, related standards, lesson plans, and historical photos). The Manzanar National Historic Site Educator Resources Kit was supported by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program and the Manzanar History Association.
City in the Sun (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Displacement, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
1946 novel by Karon Kehoe that represented the first full-length work of adult fiction to dramatize Japanese American confinement.
Against Their Will: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Injustice
- Available
Exhibition centering on the experiences of Japanese Americans in Jerome and Rohwer, the two concentration camps located in Arkansas, as well as those of who lived near the camps and/or worked in them. The exhibition was developed by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Public History Program and debuted as part of the Life Interrupted project in 2004. The largest of eight exhibitions mounted in various venues in the Little Rock area, Against Their Will debuted at Arkansas Statehouse Convention Center downstairs foyer on September 24, 2004, running through November 28, 2004. Against Their Will is currently on permanent display at the World War II Japanese American Internment Museum, which opened in McGehee, Arkansas, in 2013.
21st Century Manzanar (book)
- Books
- Adult
- Fiction
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Available
Novel by Perry Miyake that imagines an early 21st century roundup of Japanese Americans and how Sansei and Yonsei would react to it.
Guilty by Reason of Race (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Evils of racism, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film produced by NBC and shown nationally on September 19, 1972, as part of the NBC Reports series. It was the second major network documentary on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans after The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame, which aired on CBS in 1965.
A Grain of Sand (album)
- Albums
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Contemporary Folk
- Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Injustice
- Widely available
Originally produced and released in 1973 by Paredon Records, A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America by folk trio Chris Kando Iijima, Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto, and William "Charlie" Chin is widely recognized to be the first album of Asian American music. The record is a combination of folk songs, political ballads and protest songs. The music was written, performed and recorded at the height of the Asian American, black, and anti-war movements in the early '70s by New York musicians and activists Iijima, Miyamoto, and Chin, who were then in their twenties and early thirties. The original album includes artwork by Arlan Huang/Artist Resource Basement Workshop on the album jacket and liner notes with a political statement by the musicians, lyrics, and a list of Asian American publications from the era. One of the songs, "We Are the Children," is likely the first song in ...
The Journey (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 3-5
- Picture Book, Children's
- Evils of racism, Expression through art, Power of the past
- Widely available
A children's book by Sansei author and artist Sheila Hamanaka, published by Orchard Books in 1990. The Journey: Japanese Americans, Racism and Renewal is based on a 25-foot mural painted by Hamanaka that mixes the history of Japanese Americans with an emphasis on the American concentration camps of World War II with her own family's experience using a mixture of Japanese iconography, realism and caricature. The book features both close-ups of the mural as well as a panoramic view of all five panels, which are accompanied by the author's text, giving her perspective on history, tradition, and hope. It also includes a preface and afterword reflecting on these themes.
Eagle Against the Sun (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Loss of innocence, Coming of age, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
A dramatic short film by John Akahoshi centering on a 17-year-old Japanese American high school girl and the impact the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor has on her life.
I Am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 7-8
- Children's
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice
- Widely available
Book aimed at middle school audiences that tells the larger story of the Japanese American World War II removal and incarceration through the experiences of one typical Nisei teenager.
Farewell to Manzanar (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, History
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
- Available
Made-for-television movie about a Japanese American family in Manzanar during World War II. Based on the book of the same name by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Farewell to Manzanar aired nationally on NBC stations on March 11, 1976, and remains one of the few mainstream dramatic films centered on the Japanese American concentration camp experience.
Meeting at Tule Lake (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Evils of racism, Injustice
- Limited availability
Documentary film produced and directed by Scott T. Tsuchitani that features interviews with seven former Tule Lake inmates talking about life in the camp, the "loyalty questionnaire" and segregation, and the importance of remembering, intercut with footage of poet Hiroshi Kashiwagi reading the title poem and of a Tule Lake Pilgrimage. Meeting at Tule Lake was produced by the Tule Lake Committee for the 1994 Tule Lake Pilgrimage.
Dear Miss Breed (play)
- Plays
- Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure
- No availability
Play about a San Diego librarian who corresponded with incarcerated Japanese American children during World War II. Playwright Joanne Oppenheim adapted Dear Miss Breed from her children's book Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference.
U.S. Detention Camps, 1942-1946 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Displacement, Injustice
- No availability
Traveling exhibition organized by the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) that debuted in April 1990. Consisting of ninety framed photographs with captions, text panels, and titles, U.S. Detention Camps was likely the first exhibition to go beyond the story of the ten War Relocation Authority administered camps to include the so-called "assembly centers" as well as the enemy alien detention camps administered by the army and by the Justice Department as a part of the larger story. Aiming, in the words of project directory and NJAHS president Clifford Uyeda, to tell the full story "from the beginning of the experience to the end," the exhibition begins with the anti-Japanese movement and stretches through the Redress Movement, while also depicting inmate resistance, and controversially, suicides.[1] Venues for U.S. Detention Camps included the Jimmy Carter Museum in Atlanta, Georgia; the Swords to Plowshare Gallery in Detroit, Michigan; and Stanford University's Meyer ...
The Harvest of Hate (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Loss of innocence, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Novel focusing on one Japanese American family's forced removal and incarceration written by a former teacher at Poston. Originally written in 1946, The Harvest of Hate first saw publication forty years later.