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164 articles
From Barbed Wire to Battlefields: Japanese American Experiences in WWII (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Displacement, Evils of racism
- Available
Exhibition on the Japanese American incarceration and on Japanese Americans in the U.S. armed forces during World War II at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. Barbed Wire to Battlefields opened in the Joe W. and D. D. Brown Foundation Special Exhibit Gallery on March 15, 2014, and ran through October 12, 2014. The exhibition featured the photographs of Dorothea Lange , Ansel Adams , and Bill Mambo along with objects and video interviews. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum put on a slate of public programs including book events, lectures, and film screenings, and incorporated curricular material and a webinar aimed at school children. The exhibition was funded in part by the Annenberg Foundation and the Eugenie and Joseph Jones Family Foundation. The National World War II Museum opened in New Orleans in 2000 at the National D-Day Museum.
Executive Order 9066 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History, Art, Photography
- Injustice, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
Landmark photographic exhibition on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans curated by Richard and Maisie Conrat for the California Historical Society in 1972. The first exhibition on this topic to tour nationally—including such venues as the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York—it likely introduced many Americans to this story and was part of a resurgence of interest in the topic both inside and outside the Japanese American community in the 1970s.
Executive Order 9066: 50 Years Before and 50 Years After (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Evils of racism, Injustice, Displacement
- Limited availability
Exhibition on the Japanese American experience in the Seattle area mounted by the Wing Luke Asian Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 . The exhibition was organized, scripted, and constructed largely by volunteer community members and was accompanied by an exhibition catalog authored by David Takami.
Hell to Eternity (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- War, Drama
- Evils of racism, Heroism - real or perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Available
Hell to Eternity , directed by Phil Karlson and released in 1960, is a Hollywood war film that dramatizes the real-life story of Guy Gabaldon (played by Jeffrey Hunter), an American Marine who singlehandedly captured over 1,500 Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Island of Saipan during the fighting there in mid-1944. In addition to its portrait of Gabaldon's wartime heroism, Hell to Eternity is notable as the first Hollywood film to portray the wartime confinement of Japanese Americans.
Hiroshi Honda: Detained (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Art, History
- Expression through art, Evils of racism, Displacement
- No availability
Exhibition featuring the internment art of Hiroshi Honda at the Honolulu Academy of Art (HAA) which ran from June 21 to September 9, 2012. Hiroshi Honda: Detained , was the HAA's second exhibition of Honda's art, after Reflections of Internment: The Art of Hawaii's Hiroshi Honda in 1994. The exhibition included drawings and watercolors produced during Honda's internment in camps in Hawai'i and in the continental U.S. drawn from the HAA's permanent collection.
Fighting for Justice: The Coram Nobis Cases (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past
- Limited availability
Documentary film that provides a short overview of the coram nobis cases , based on interviews with attorneys Dale Minami , Peggy Nagae , and Rod Kawakami and television footage of other key figures.
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.
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, …
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]
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.
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.
Pride and Shame (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Immigrant experience, Evils of racism, Injustice
- No availability
Early exhibition on the history of Japanese Americans in the Pacific Northwest that was one of the first to highlight the wartime incarceration experience. After its 1970 debut at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle, Washington, a traveling version of Pride and Shame followed that toured numerous venues over the next five years. It was among several key exhibitions that reflected a growing consciousness about the incarceration from this time period.
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 .
If Tomorrow Comes (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Love and sacrifice, Evils of racism
- Available
Made for television movie that tells the story of a Romeo and Juliet type romance between a Nisei man and a white woman against the backdrop of World War II. Produced by Aaron Spelling Productions, "If Tomorrow Comes" debuted on CBS on December 7, 1971. It was directed by George McCowan from a teleplay by Lew Hunter and starred former child star Patty Duke opposite newcomer Frank Liu. The movie was originally titled "My Husband, the Enemy," with protests by the Asian American community leading to a name change.
Citizen 13660 (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir, Graphic Novels
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Expression through art, Will to survive
- Widely available
Published in 1946 as the last camps were being shuttered, Nisei artist Miné Okubo 's illustrated eponymous memoir, Citizen 13660 , has the distinction of being the earliest, first-person, book-length account of the American concentration camp experience. Always a vigorous booster of her own work, Okubo promoted the book that came to define her career as "the first and only documentary story of the Japanese evacuation and relocation written and illustrated by one who was there." [1] All told, Okubo produced an estimated 2,000 portraits of camp life in a range of styles and materials, including ink, charcoal, and gouache, while imprisoned at the Tanforan temporary detention camp in California and the Topaz concentration camp in Utah. Okubo's voluminous output notwithstanding, it was primarily Citizen 13660' s roughly 200 line-drawings that established her standing as a major chronicler of and historic witness to the camp experience.
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.
Farewell to Manzanar (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Popular memoir that tells the story of one family's forced removal and confinement at Manzanar through the eyes of a young girl. First published in 1973, Farewell to Manzanar has sold over one million copies and is one of the most widely read accounts of Japanese American incarceration and its aftermath.
The Ito Sisters (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Role of women
- No availability
Documentary on three Nisei sisters from Central California who lived to see their beiju (88th birthday) celebration, exploring their lives to the end of World War II.
"Putting Them Where They Could Do No Harm" (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Heartbreak of betrayal, Power of words
- Widely available
Short film that makes the case for renaming Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown Los Angeles, named after the wartime mayor of Los Angeles who agitated for the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans. Eschewing narration, the film uses Bowron's wartime radio addresses (voiced by Maciek Kolodziejeczak) as evidence of his anti-Japanese and pro-exclusion stance, juxtaposed with excerpts from Japanese Americans testifying about their wartime experiences in clips from testimony before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians . The film ends with many examples of entities whose names have been changed in recent years due to changing societal attitudes towards race, before calling for the renaming of Fletcher Bowron Square. The title comes from one of Bowron's radio addresses.
We Hereby Refuse: The Akutsu Family Resists (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Animation
- Chaos and order, Evils of racism, Heartbreak of betrayal
- Widely available
Simply animated story focusing on the Akutsu family, told in Nisei Jim Akutsu's first-person voice, starting with the arrest of his father after the attack on Pearl Harbor, his internment and interrogation, Jim's unsuccessful attempts to enlist, and the family's subsequent removal to Puyallup . In between the Akutsu family story are scenes of Japanese American Citizens League leaders Mike Masaoka and James Sakamoto cooperating with government officials to facilitate the roundup. The story was adapted from the book We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, with the animation based on Ross Ishikawa's artwork for the book.
American Dreams (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 3-5
- Historical Fiction, Children's
- Evils of racism, Coming of age, Injustice, Growing up – pain or pleasure
- Available
Chapter book for children about two eleven-year-old girls in Hollywood, one white and one Japanese American, in the weeks just before and just after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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 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.
The Japanese Lover (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Everlasting love, Evils of racism, Circle of life, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience
- Widely available
Novel by best-selling Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende, the title character of which is a Nisei man whose story of wartime incarceration is woven into the narrative.
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.