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Reflections of Internment: The Art of Hawaii's Hiroshi Honda (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 9-12, Adult
Art
Displacement, Expression through art, Injustice
No availability

Exhibition of paintings by Hawai'i Kibei artist Hiroshi Honda, most of which depict the various internment and concentration camps he was held in during World War II. The paintings displayed came from a collection discovered and preserved by Honda's son, Ed Honda. Working with an ad hoc committee that included Bill Hoshijo and University of Hawai'i Professor Franklin Odo, the Hondas donated the collection to the Honolulu Academy of Art (HAA) (now the Honolulu Art Museum). With funding from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Reflections of Internment opened at HAA on September 10, 1994, alongside a traveling exhibit, The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942–1945 , a broader survey of art from the concentration camps. An accompanying thirty-three page catalog included essays by Odo and Marcia Morse and color reproductions of nineteen of the artworks; …

Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art, Immigration experience, Displacement
Limited availability

Retrospective exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) featuring the work of Issei artist Henry Sugimoto , who was best known for his depictions of the wartime incarceration experience, many of them executed while he was confined at the Fresno , Jerome , and Rohwer camps. Debuting at JANM in 2001, the exhibition subsequently traveled to Sacramento and to Arkansas.

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.

Eyewitness: Stan Honda: Reflections of a Photojournalist (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, Biography
Expression through art, Facing darkness
Widely available

Short documentary film about photojournalist Stan Honda, who gained fame for the photographs he took of the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Point of Departure (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Expression through art, Power of the past, Rebirth
Widely available

Short documentary film that highlights the creation of interpretive artworks at the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial in 2022. Featuring interviews with Bainbridge Island incarceration survivor Lilly Kitamoto Kodama and artists Anna Brones and Luc Revel, we see the fabrication of the pieces and their installation, concluding with their September 2022 dedication. The film was funded by the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and City of Bainbridge Island.

Omoiyari: A Song Film by Kishi Bashi (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, Biography, Music
Expression through art, Identity crisis, Power of the past
Widely available

Feature length musical documentary film that follows singer/songwriter Kishi Bashi as he writes and performs songs from a project inspired by the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Sights Unseen: The Photographic Constructions of Masumi Hayashi (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art
Available

Retrospective exhibition of the work of photographic collage artist Masumi Hayashi held at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Curated by Karin Higa, Sights Unseen included thirty of Hayashi's works—each of which are photo collages consisting of anywhere from five to one hundred forty individual photographs—including several from JANM's collection. This first survey of Hayashi's work included pieces from five different sets of work: abandoned prisons, EPA Superfund sites, Japanese American and Japanese Canadian concentration camps, sacred sites, and portraits of Nikkei . The five Nikkei portraits—of Fumi Hayashida, Yuri Kochiyama , Joy Kogawa, Miné Okubo , and Eji Suyama—were displayed for the first time.

Crossings: 10 Views of America's Concentration Camps (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art, Desire to escape
No availability

2009 exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum featuring the work of ten artists, juxtaposing work created by Issei and Nisei artists in the concentration camps and works by contemporary artists that draw on that experience. The "crossings" in the title refers to the "crossing point between generations" that the exhibition strives to provide. Featured artists included Sesshu Foster, Masumi Hayashi , Hisako Hibi , Toyo Miyatake , Tadashi Nakamura, Benji Okubo , Mine Okubo , Shizu Saldamando, Renee Tajima-Peña, and Sadayuki Uno . Crossings opened on April 2, 2009.

Lasting Beauty: Miss Jamison and the Student Muralists (exhibition)

Museum Exhibitions
Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Art, History
Expression through art
Limited availability

Exhibition featuring murals painted by Japanese American students at Rohwer High School under the direction of art teacher Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel. Lasting Beauty was one of eight exhibitions mounted in and around Little Rock, Arkansas, as part of the Life Interrupted project in 2004. It was later shown at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in 2005.

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.

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.

Jimmy Murakami-Non Alien (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Expression through art, Power of the past
Widely available

Irish documentary filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle's profile of expatriate Nisei animator, filmmaker, and artist Jimmy Murakami.

... I Told You So (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Importance of community, Power of words
Widely available

Early documentary film produced by the Asian American arts organization Visual Communications that profiles the Sansei poet Lawson Fusao Inada . Shot in black and white, the film follows Inada through the streets of Fresno where he recites poetry from his 1971 book Before the War: poems as they happened over music by June and Dan Kuramoto, visiting friends and the family fish market. Later, he is shown working with other Asian American writers/editors on a new literary anthology (that will be published as Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Asian American Writers ), at work teaching at Southern Oregon University and walking among the ruins at the Tule Lake site. Between the poetry, Inada talks about his upbringing in Fresno where he related more to Chicano and African American classmates than to Japanese Americans, his family background, and the impact of wartime incarceration. No director, producer or writer is listed in …

Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Quest for discovery, Rebirth
Widely available

Documentary profile of performing artist and activist Nobuko Miyamoto tracing her early career as a precocious dancer and singer on Broadway and in Hollywood followed by a political awakening that saw her and her songwriting partner Chris Iijima become the musical voice of the Asian American Movement. The film traces her life as a single mother in Los Angeles, where she teaches dance out of the Senshin Buddhist Temple before forming the Asian American performing arts company Great Leap. The film also includes a brief segment of Miyamoto's memories of her and her family's wartime incarceration at the Santa Anita Assembly Center .

Yuki Shimoda: Asian American Actor (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Quest for discovery, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Documentary film profiling pioneering Nisei actor Yuki Shimoda that takes us from his youth in Sacramento, wartime incarceration as a young man at Tule Lake , and the ups and downs of his acting career. The film includes interviews with many of Shimoda's friends and contemporaries including Mako , Nobu McCarthy , and Soon Teck Oh, along with clips from key roles in Auntie Mame , Farewell to Manzanar , and Hito Hata among others. The film places his career in the larger context of Asian American actors who struggle to find meaningful parts and often are forced to play stereotypical roles to make ends meet.

Fujitaro Kubota and His Garden (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary, History
Expression through art, Man against nature, Nature as beauty
Widely available

Documentary on the life of Fujitaro Kubota and Kubota Garden. An Issei who cycled through various businesses before discovering landscape gardening, Kubota built a large garden in Seattle to showcase his nursery stock that became an attraction. He and his sons later designed Japanese-style gardens for large clients such as the Rainier Club, Bloedel Reserve, and the University of Washington. The Kubota Garden was eventually sold to the City of Seattle in the 1980s and continues to be operated by the city. The film also covers the Kubota family's wartime incarceration at Puyallup and Minidoka and the difficult postwar period. The film is based on interviews with Kubota family members, those who worked him, and historians tied to the Kubota Garden Foundation.

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.

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).

A Tribute to Ruth Asawa (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Power of the past
Widely available

Short documentary film on artist Ruth Asawa by Dianne Fukami. Released shortly after Asawa's death in August 2013, the film incorporates interview footage from Fukami's earlier 2008 film Ruth Asawa: Community Artist .

Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Darkness and light, Expression through art, Nature as beauty
Widely available

Documentary film on photographer Toyo Miyatake , directed by Robert A. Nakamura for the Japanese American National Museum in 2001. Toyo Miyatake: Infinite Shades of Gray traces Miyatake's various identities as Little Tokyo studio photographer of portraits, weddings, and other events before and after the war; prewar art photographer; and surreptitious chronicler of incarceration during World War II. The film is an expansion of Nakamura's earlier documentary on Miyatake, The Brighter Side of Dark: Toyo Miyatake, 1895–1979 . Among its awards are a CINE Gold Eagle and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short at the Florida Film Festival; it was also an official selection of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

We the People: The Stage Production (film)

Films and Video
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Loss of innocence, Power of tradition
Available

Short film that documents the performance of the elementary school age students of Jan Ken Po Gakko in Sacramento on July 20, 2000. The production is highlighted by a play performed by the students based on Mary Tsukamoto and Elizabeth Pinkerton's book We the People .

Words, Weavings and Songs (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Role of women, Expression through art, Power of the past
Widely available

2002 documentary film profiling three Nisei women who drew on their experiences as teenagers in American concentration camps to pursue different types of creative expression both in camp and afterwards. The three artists featured are writer, playwright, and painter Wakako Yamauchi , weaver Momo Nagano , and singer Mary Nomura . A project of the Frank H. Watase Media Arts Center at the Japanese American National Museum , Words, Weavings & Songs was produced and directed by John Esaki and was funded in part by a grant from the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program .

You Don't Know Jack: The Jack Soo Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Available

Feature-length documentary film on singer and actor Jack Soo . Based on interviews with friends and colleagues along with many clips from his film and television appearances, You Don't Know Jack also covers his time at Tanforan and Topaz during World War II.

The Art of Gaman: The Story Behind the Objects (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Expression through art, Will to survive
Widely available

A short documentary film created by Rick Quan in 2010 to accompany the traveling exhibition, The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946 which features arts and crafts created by Japanese American internees while living in World War II concentration camps. The film includes stories about the inmates who created the objects included in the exhibition, as told by their children and grandchildren. It also includes an interview with the exhibition's curator, Delphine Hirasuna, who describes The Art of Gaman' s purpose of celebrating the unique talents of these camp artists and helping people understand the larger story of the Japanese American mass confinement. The DVD release also includes Voices Long Silent , a 1980 short film by Bob Matsumoto, that was also shown in conjunction with The Art of Gaman exhibition.

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