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149 articles

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Japanese Americans and Internment (book)

Books
Grades 7-8
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
Available

Overview textbook on the Japanese American removal and incarceration published by Globe Fearon in 1994 as part of their "Globe Mosaic of American History" series. No author is credited with sociologist (and former inmate) Harry H.L. Kitano listed on the title page as the "consultant."

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.

Justice Denied: A History of the Japanese in the United States (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
History, Children's
Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Limited availability

Early overview of the history of Japanese Americans for young readers by British author/activist Jennifer Cross.

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.

How Did This Happen Here?: Japanese Internment Camps (book)

Books
Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Children's
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
Available

Short overview picture book on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans aimed at an elementary school audience.

Nakamura Comes Home (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Evils of racism, Injustice, Totalitarianism
Widely available

Short story about the return of a Nisei veteran to his California hometown by Henry H. Hayden. Kido Nakamura, with his chest full of medals and a limp due to a war wound, returns to Bonneville, where he had grown up as an orphan, and been on his own since age fourteen, until his forced removal to Tanforan . From camp, he joined the 442nd and served in Europe. He stops first at the hotel where he used to live and work, but a former co-worker tells him that the new owners are unwelcoming. He walks through he town, seeing racist signs, tangible evidence of anti-Japanese sentiment. Walking out to a farm he thinks he can get a job at, he is harassed by drunks and ponders his future in the town.

Case History (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Evils of racism
Widely available

Short story about a young Nisei couple settling in "Centreville," a fictional small town in California, after World War II. John and Mary Mori arrive and open a flower market in town. But despite John's military service and the couple's good deeds, the face anti-Japanese harassment before a series of events begin to turn the tide. Author Bradford Smith tells the story using fictitious newspaper articles, letters, and personal testimony.

And Then a Rainbow (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Role of women, Will to survive, Working class struggles
Limited availability

Memoir by a Nisei woman who renounces her citizenship at Tule Lake and lives in Japan for thirteen years before returning to the U.S.

Japanese War Bride (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama
Evils of racism, Love and sacrifice, Family - blessing or curse
Available

1952 movie directed by King Vidor about a white Korean War veteran who returns to his California home with a Japanese war bride. The couple faces subtle and overt opposition from his family and friends that comes to a head when the couple has their first baby. A Nisei neighbor discusses his family's wartime incarceration, one of the first mentions of this topic in any Hollywood film.

The Japanese in America (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5
History
Empowerment, Evils of racism, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Available

Overview book for children on the history of Japanese Americans from the 1860s to the 1990s. First published in 1967 as one of the first books for children on Japanese Americans, it saw revised versions in 1974 and 1991.

Internment of Japanese Americans (Greenhaven Press) (book)

Books
Grades 9-12
Grades 9-12
Young adult
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
Limited availability

Reader intended for high school audiences that includes a mixture of primary, contemporaneous, and contemporary pieces on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Bad Day at Black Rock (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Thriller
Evils of racism, Fear of other
Widely available

Critically acclaimed 1955 movie starring Spencer Tracy whose plot is built around the murder of the Issei father of a Nisei war hero in a forlorn desert town and its subsequent cover up. Though it was one of the first movies to note the discrimination Japanese Americans faced during World War II, no Japanese American characters appear in it. Bad Day at Black Rock was nominated for three Academy Awards.

What It Means To Be An American: Lesson Plans on Race and the Media in Times of Crisis (curricula)

Curricula
Middle School, High School
Dangers of ignorance, Evils of racism, Fear of other, Injustice, Rights

Published by the Japanese American Citizens League in 2004, this 24-page booklet provides a middle/high school curriculum that addresses the parallels between the World War II experience of Japanese Americans and the post-September 11th experience of Arab and Muslim Americans. The unit is organized into three lessons "Hidden Truths – The Use of Spin," "Opinion-Editorials," "Political Cartoons," with a total of ten learning activities. The booklet also includes background information about the World War II Japanese American incarceration, the impact of September 11 on Arab and Muslim Americans, and myths and stereotypes.

Personal Justice Denied: An Issue for All Americans (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
Limited availability

Video of a February 19, 1998, panel discussion at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on the topic of the coram nobis cases , featuring presentations by principals Fred Korematsu and Gordon Hirabayashi and lead attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami.

Weedflower (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Children's, Historical Fiction
Growing up – pain or pleasure, Evils of racism, Fear of other, Losing hope
Widely available

Coming-of-age novel for young adults set in Poston with a young Nisei girl as the protagonist. Weedflower was author Cynthia Kadohata's second young adult novel, after the Newbery Medal winning Kira-Kira .

Japanese American Internment Camps (Greenhaven Press, 2001) (book)

Books
Grades 7-8
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
Available

Anthology of first-person pieces on the wartime removal and incarceration as part of Greenhaven Press's "History Firsthand" Series.

Lone Heart Mountain (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
Limited availability

Illustrated memoir of life at Heart Mountain by artist Estelle Ishigo , a white woman married to a Nisei .

Looking Like the Enemy (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Evils of racism, Role of men, Heroism – real and perceived
Widely available

Documentary film on the unique experiences of Japanese American soldiers in Asian wars: World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The 52-minute film was made by Karen L. Ishizuka and Robert A. Nakamura in conjunction with the exhibition Fighting for Tomorrow: Japanese Americans in America's Wars at the Japanese American National Museum and screened in the exhibition gallery.

Enemy Alien (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Evils of racism
Limited availability

Bilingual memoir by Kiyo Hirano of her World War II experiences as an "enemy alien" is a rare example of an Issei woman's first-person perspective of the American concentration camps. Enemy Alien (Japanese title: Tekikoku gaijin) was translated into English by George Hirano and Yuri Kageyama and published by Japantown Arts and Media Workshop (JAM) Publications in 1983. Hirano's Japanese-English biographical account of her incarceration at the Merced Assembly Center and Amache and of her resettlement was originally written as an assignment for a creative writing class at the Japantown Arts and Media Workshop in San Francisco, and eventually published by the organization.

The Red Tricycle (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Evils of racism, Injustice, Optimism – power or folly
Available

The scene as a Nikkei family—a mother with her two daughters and four-year-old son Tommy—make the last preparations at their farmhouse before a truck comes to take them to the train station that will deliver them to a concentration camp. Their spirits are temporarily buoyed by a unexpected kind act by one of the soldiers who comes for them.

Tsuru (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Drama
Desire to escape, Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Will to survive
Widely available

Short dramatic film about an elderly Issei couple whose attempt to avoid the mass roundup of Japanese Americans during World War II is aided by a white nurse. Tsuru was a senior year project at Chapman University by Chris K. T. Bright.

Children of the Relocation Camps (book)

Books
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Children's, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Injustice
Available

Picture book for elementary school children that tells the story of the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from a children's perspective. The book was named a Carter G. Woodson Elementary Level Honor Book in 2001.

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.

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.

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.

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