Browse > Theme > Growing up – pain or pleasure

43 articles

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Alice and the Bear (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Companionship as salvation, Desire to escape, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Power of the past
Widely available

Short story by Kiyoshi Parker about an old woman whose trip to a Little Tokyo store with her great-granddaughter brings back memories of her camp experience. Alice Miyamoto visits Little Tokyo in Los Angeles for the first time in thirty years with her family. After lunch, her daughter suggests they go visit the Go For Broke Monument . But on the way, her four-year-old great-granddaughter drags her into a store and picks up a stuffed Totoro toy. Alice is immediately reminded of a stuffed bear she had as a child of about the same age that was her constant companion when she was in an unspecified concentration camp.

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.

Beacon Hill Boys (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, Historical Fiction
Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Identity crisis, Power of tradition
Available

Novel for young adults by Ken Mochizuki about a Sansei teenager's quest for identity and meaning in 1972 Seattle.

Beyond Loyalty: The Story of a Kibei (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Individual versus society, Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy, Self – inner and outer
Widely available

Memoir of Kibei scholar Minoru Kiyota (1923–2013) that focuses on the difficult World War II years that saw him incarcerated in American concentration camps and eventually renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Originally published as a Japanese language autobiographical novel in 1990, it was translated and reworked into an English language memoir published in 1997 by the University of Hawai'i Press.

A Boy No More (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Young Adult, History
Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
Widely available

A 2004 young adult novel by Harry Mazer about Adam Pelko, who is torn between grieving his father, who died on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , and his feelings of loyalty towards his Japanese American best friend, Devi, whose own father has been arrested and taken to the War Relocation Authority camp in Manzanar, California. When Devi asks Adam to help him find his father, Adam is faced with a moral conflict: should he risk both his own safety and his friendship in order to do what is right? He is also still deeply affected by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the urge to scapegoat the Japanese Americans, despite his urge to help and defend his friend.

The Children of Topaz: The Story of the Japanese-American Internment Camp (book)

Books
Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Children's
Companionship as salvation, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Loss of innocence
Widely available

Children's book by Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat based on a class diary kept by a 3rd grade teacher at Topaz .

Crossroads: Boyle Heights (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Importance of community, Immigrant experience, Working class struggles, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Widely available

A documentary film compiled from life histories of past and present residents of Boyle Heights, a working-class neighborhood east of downtown Los Angeles. From the 1920s-1950s, Boyle Heights was a racially and ethnically diverse home to immigrants from Mexico, Japan, England, Germany, Russia and Armenia as well as people from the east, the south and the southwest portions of the United States who lived, worked and worshiped in the area. The film also explores how the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans and their postwar return affected businesses and friendships. While many Japanese Americans faced hostility in other parts of Los Angeles, residents of Boyle Heights share stories of a deeper empathy with the plight of those incarcerated. Crossroads: Boyle Heights was originally produced to accompany the exhibition Boyle Heights: The Power of Place (2002) at the Japanese American National Museum .

The Crystal City Story: One Family's Experience with the World War II Japanese Internment Camps (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Reunion
Available

Self-published memoir by Tomo Izumi about her family's internment in the Crystal City, Texas , internment camp and her life before and after the war in a small plantation town on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

Dandelion Through the Crack/Kiyo's Story (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Memoir by a Nisei woman of farm life in Sacramento, her family's wartime incarceration, and their struggles to reestablish their lives after the war.

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 .

Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Biography, Children's
Growing up – pain or pleasure, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
Widely available

Short biography of American politician Norman Mineta by Andrea Warren, published in 2019. The book, which is written for young adult readers, focuses on Mineta's childhood, with an emphasis on the years he and his family were incarcerated at Heart Mountain . The book includes historical War Relocation Authority photographs and a few personal photos from the Mineta family collection.

Floating Home (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Facing reality, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Reunion, Working class struggles
Widely available

Short story about a family returning to Little Tokyo from Rohwer . When fourteen-year-old Mari returns home with her parents, she expects to go to their old house, but is dismayed when they go to a run down residential hotel instead. Her father explains to her that they had rented the house they had lived in before the war, and they it was now being rented to someone else. Mari decides to walk to the house to take a last look. She finds an African American girl about her age on the swing in front. Initially suspicious, the girl becomes friendlier when Mari tells her why she and her family had to leave and invites her inside.

The Floating World (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Coming of age, Family – blessing or curse, Female roles, Working class struggles, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Widely available

Acclaimed coming-of-age novel largely set on the road centering on Olivia Osaka and her itinerant family in the 1950s.

Flowers from Mariko (book)

Books
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Grades 3-5
Children's, Historical Fiction
Growing up – pain or pleasure, Heartbreak of betrayal, Optimism – power or folly, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Working class struggles
Widely available

Picture book for children about a Japanese American family's World War II incarceration and difficulties in restarting their lives after the war, told from the perspective of a young girl of about nine of ten. Mariko, her little sister Emi, and their parents live in Los Angeles before the war, where their father works as a gardener. When they are forced to leave, he leaves his gardening truck and equipment with their landlord. When Japanese Americans are allowed to return to the West Coast in 1945, the family makes plans to return. However their father finds that his truck and equipment have been sold, and the former landlord is nowhere to be found. The family is forced to live in a government-run trailer park upon their return, and her father is unable to find work. One day, he finds some old equipment in the trash, along with some flower seeds. …

Gasa Gasa Girl Goes to Camp (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir, Art
Coming of age, Expression through art, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Oppression of women
Widely available

Concentration camp memoir by a Nisei artist. Ten years old at the time of the wartime incarceration, Lily Yuriko Nakai Havey was sent to Santa Anita Assembly Center and Amache with her older brother and Issei parents. Evolving from captions that accompanied displays of the author's postwar paintings, Gasa Gasa Girl intersperses stories of life in the camps with recollections of happier days with her parents, brother, and aunts in Hollywood, California, before the war. The book is illustrated by twenty-eight color reproductions of her watercolor paintings that depict both her external and internal lives during the war, as well as a like number of family photographs, archival photographs, and photographs of key objects mentioned in the text. Published by the University of Utah Press, the book includes an foreword by historian Cherstin Lyon.

Good Luck Soup (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Importance of community, Individual versus society, Power of tradition
Widely available

Autobiographical documentary film by Matthew Hashiguchi that explores his and his family's experience growing up as mixed-race Japanese Americans in Cleveland, Ohio. Hashiguchi draws inspiration from his Nisei grandmother and family matriarch Eva Hashiguchi, who settled in Cleveland after leaving the Jerome , Arkansas, concentration camp during World War II and chose to remain there. In addition to the feature length film, the Good Luck Soup project also includes an interactive website that serves as an "participatory storytelling" platform.

Heart Mountain: An All American Town (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Growing up – pain or pleasure, Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
Widely available

Documentary film on the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp written, produced and directed by Raechel Donahue that focuses on the experiences of the children in the camp.

Hello Maggie! (book)

Books
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Grades 1-2, Grades 3-5
Children's, Picture Book
Companionship as salvation, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Loss of innocence
Widely available

Autobiographical children's picture book about a pet bird who enlivens a Japanese American family's confinement in a World War II concentration camp.

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.

The Invisible Thread (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Memoir, Children's
Immigrant experience, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Expression through art, Facing darkness, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
Widely available

Memoir for young adult readers by the acclaimed children's book author that covers her charmed childhood in Berkeley, California, and her wartime incarceration during World War II.

Manzanar (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Limited availability

Experimental documentary film by Bob Nakamura made in 1971 that was one of the first films to explore the legacy of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

One-Two-One-Seven (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Family – blessing or curse, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Power of the past
Widely available

Documentary film by Brett Kodama about the experiences of his grandmother, Sharon Shizuko Okazaki Kodama, at Manzanar . Just three years old when she and her family were forcibly removed from their Southern California home and sent to Manzanar, Okazaki Kodama's Issei father killed her Kibei mother in September 1942. She and her older sister spent the rest of the war at the Manzanar Children's Village , the camp orphanage. They were raised after the war by an aunt and uncle in Washington state. Okazaki Kodama recalls her memories of the camp and the orphanage, talks about her parents' deaths and reflects on the impact on the incarceration over visuals that include archival photographs and footage, photographs from her own family album, and images of the Manzanar National Historic Site today. The title refers to the Okazaki's family number at Manzanar.

Otoko (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Disillusionment and dreams, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Immigrant experience, Loss of innocence, Role of men, Vulnerability of the meek
Widely available

Short story by Wakako Yamauchi centering on a Nisei brother and sister who recall their father and their family's prewar and wartime hardships while listening to Japanese folksongs. On the longest day of the year one summer, Kiyo visits his sister, the narrator, bringing a record of Japanese children's songs. The act of listening to the songs triggers memories of their early years. Once relatively prosperous, their fortunes turn dire quickly when their father loses his job. He becomes a tenant farmer, but can't make enough to support the family. Kiyo recalls a time when he went with his father to visit a friend, Kiyo thinks, to ask to borrow money. The narrator recalls working as a "school girl" with a white family for a few months, returning to find her family living in a tent, her little sister's teeth rotting, and her father suffering from a stomach ailment. Later, …

Painting the Rainbow (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Children's, Historical Fiction
Family – blessing or curse, Coming of age, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Growing up – pain or pleasure
Widely available

Coming-of-age novel for young readers about two thirteen-year old cousins at a New England family summer retreat in 1965 who grapple with both their changing relationship and with the discovery of family secrets stemming from the World War II period that tangentially involve the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.

Paper Wishes (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5
Children's, Historical Fiction
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Lost love, Power of silence
Widely available

Children's novel by Lois Sepahban centering on a young girl from Bainbridge Island, Washington , who turns mute when she and her family are uprooted and sent to Manzanar .

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