Browse > Theme > Nationalism – complications
10 articles
Am I a Traitor? (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Facing reality, Nationalism – complications, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Essay by Issei socialist journalist Shigeki Oka (1878–1959) focusing on his decision to aid the Allies and oppose the Japanese militarist regime during World War II. Oka begins by describing the situation prior to the war, where Japanese American leaders dismissed the possibility of war between the U.S. and Japan. While preparing a translation of Hitler's anti-Japanese writings to be distributed in Japan, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurs. Oka sends a telegram to President Roosevelt offering his services and expresses the desire that Japan lose the war as quickly as possible so that its militarist regime would be brought down; these actions lead to members of the Japanese American community branding him a traitor. He later volunteers to go to India despite his advanced age to write and distribute propaganda for the U.S. After the war, the Japanese community continues to shun him despite the fact that the events …
Two Homelands (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Death – inevitable or tragedy, Emptiness of attaining a false dream, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Nationalism – complications, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Vulnerability of the strong
- Widely available
Epic three volume novel by best-selling Japanese novelist Toyoko Yamasaki that centers on the identity dilemmas of a Kibei man during and immediately after World War II. Published in Japan in 1983, it was adapted into a popular Japanese television drama the following year. Alarmed by reports that the novel/TV show portrayed Japanese Americans as having split loyalties, Japanese American leaders succeeded in preventing the TV drama from being shown in the continental U.S. In 2007, the University of Hawai'i Press published an English language translation by V. Dixon Morris under the title Two Homelands .
Asian Americans, Episode 2: A Question of Loyalty (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Heartbreak of betrayal, Nationalism – complications, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
The second of five episodes of a landmark documentary on the Asian American experience, A Question of Loyalty focuses on the World War II period, telling the story of three Asian American families, two of which are Japanese American.
An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Widely available
An Internment Odyssey: Haisho Tenten is the third book in a series published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i and University of Hawai'i Press of a Hawai'i inmate's account of their incarceration experience during World War II. It represents a critical addition to Japanese American history as it provides the perspective of an Issei from Hawai'i who authorities incarcerated at multiple sites in the Islands and the mainland. The author, Kumaji Furuya , thus gives voice to some of the experiences faced by the 1,320 inmates from Hawai'i who like Furuya were often separated from their families for the duration of the war.
The Sensei (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Facing reality, Nationalism – complications, Reunion
- Widely available
Short story by Wakako Yamauchi centering on a former Buddhist priest whose gambling addiction has turned him into a beggar in the early postwar years. Told in the first person by a Nisei woman named Utako, the story begins with the outbreak of war and the then seventeen-year-old Utako's incarceration with her family in an Arizona concentration camp. The loyalty questionnaire divides the family, as her brother Toshio becomes a " no-no boy " and gets sent alone to Tule Lake . There, he becomes friends with Jim Morita, a fellow "no-no." After the war, the family returns to Los Angeles, and Utako ends up marrying Jim; she works as a painter of shower curtains, while he attends college. A couple of years later, Jim and Utako visit Las Vegas. On their way out, they run into the title character, a former Buddhist priest who had been a powerful inmate …
The Brothers Murata (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Family – blessing or curse, Nationalism – complications, Rights - individual or societal, Role of men
- Available
Novella by Toshio Mori about two brothers in Topaz who clash over the issue of military service. Likely written in Topaz, it was first published in the 2000 Mori anthology Unfinished Message: Selected Works of Toshio Mori .
Life behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Facing reality, Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications, Role of men
- Widely available
Internment memoir by Honolulu Issei publisher and community leader Yasutaro Soga . Originally published in 1948 as Tessaku seikatsu , it was translated into English by Kihei Hirai and a team of volunteers at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i (JCCH) and published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2008.
Mary Osaka, I Love You (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Adult
- Everlasting love, Immigrant experience, Nationalism – complications
- Widely available
Short story by acclaimed writer John Fante about the love between a Filipino American immigrant man and a Nisei woman that takes place in Los Angeles as World War II breaks out. A part of Fante's intended novel on Filipino Americans, it was first published in Good Housekeeping magazine in October 1942.
Nisei Stories of Wartime Japan (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Displacement, Facing darkness, Nationalism – complications, Self-preservation
- Widely available
Documentary film by Mary McDonald and Thomas McDonald Mazawa that tells the story of Nisei who were trapped in Japan during World War II based on interviews with ten such Nisei.
A Brother Is a Stranger (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Change versus tradition, Desire to escape, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Nationalism – complications, Power of tradition
- Available
Memoir of a young Japanese immigrant/refugee Christian about his upbringing and travails in Japan, his journey to the U.S. and his wartime internment, and his postwar observations in Japan. Published in 1946 by the John Day Company, it was among the first books by a Japanese American to appear after the war.