Browse > Theme > Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
53 articles
Strength and Diversity: Japanese American Women, 1885–1990 (exhibition)
- Museum Exhibitions
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- History
- Female roles, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Role of women
- No availability
Pioneering traveling exhibition on the experiences of Japanese American women organized by the National Japanese American Historical Society and the Oakland Museum in 1990. Strength and Diversity went on to travel throughout the country as part of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) over the next decade plus.
Baseball Behind Barbed Wire (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Role of men
- Widely available
Documentary film on baseball in camp with a particular focus on the story of Issei baseball pioneer Kenichi Zenimura and Gila River . Filmmaker Yuriko Gamo Romer builds the story around interviews with Nisei Baseball Research Project Director Kerry Yo Nakagawa and Zenimura biographer Bill Staples, Jr., along with archival interviews with Tets Furukawa and Howard Kenso Zenimura, two Nisei who played under Zenimura, the latter interviews being augmented by Sabina Kariat's animation.
Visible Target (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Progress – real or illusion
- Widely available
Documentary film on the forced removal of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island , Washington. Cris Anderson and John de Graaf produced Visible Target in 1984 for Seattle public television station KCTS, making it one of the earliest documentaries to tackle the exclusion and incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Six Weddings and a Dress (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Short documentary film centering on Chiyomi Ogawa, a Nisei woman who had been incarcerated in Manzanar , and her wedding dress, which was subsequently used by five other women in the early postwar years.
The Legacy of Heart Mountain (film)
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Will to survive
- Widely available
Documentary that explores various human interest stories centered on the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp. Produced and written by KABC-TV (Los Angeles) news anchorman David Ono and documentary filmmaker Jeff MacIntyre, The Legacy of Heart Mountain aired on local and national television and won three local area Emmy Awards.
The Red Kimono (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Evils of racism, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Will to survive
- Widely available
Novel that tells parallel stories of a Japanese American family that is uprooted from their Berkeley, California, home and sent to American concentration camps during World War II, and a young African American man who goes to prison for the beating death of that family's patriarch.
Tadaima (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama
- Companionship as salvation, Darkness and light, Disillusionment and dreams, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
Short dramatic film by Robin Takao D'Oench that chronicles the return of a Japanese American family to their West Coast home after being released from an American concentration camp. The family—two presumably Issei parents and two presumably Nisei kids, an older teenage boy and younger teenage girl—arrive at a home that is unkempt and dirty and also marred by anti-Japanese graffiti both inside and out. As they set about making the house livable again, the two kids go out into the woods and dig up a box filled with Japanese objects—family photographs, documents, and precious objects such as Japanese dolls and clothing—they had presumably buried in the period prior to their forced removal. As they slowly settle back into their home, each family member finds some degree of hope by the end of the first day. The title is a Japanese expression generally uttered by someone who is announcing his …
Voices Long Silent (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Documentary video that explores Issei perspectives of the wartime forced removal and incarceration, as related through voiceovers by actors from Los Angeles-based theater company, East West Players, accompanied by still photos of the incarceration. Filmmaker Bob Matsumoto was inspired by the testimony of Japanese Americans before the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians , and sought to recapture the voices of those who were no longer able to tell their stories. Matsumoto updated the film twice, once after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 and once after the retroactive awarding of Congressional Medal of Honor awards to Japanese Americans who had been overlooked for the award in the 1940s. Voices Long Silent was used to accompany the exhibition The Art of Gaman and included in the DVD release of The Story Behind the Objects , a video specially produced by an about the show.
Unexpected Journeys: Remarkable Stories of Japanese in America (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film consisting of short profiles of Japanese Americans whose "surprising stories" were shaped by World War II in unusual ways. The segments include
Upon Their Shoulders (book)
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Change versus tradition, Desire to escape, Disillusionment and dreams, Family – blessing or curse, Immigrant experience, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Limited availability
Novel centering on a Japanese American family in Hawai'i that may have been the first English-language published novel by a Japanese American about the Japanese American experience. Beginning with immigration and sugar plantations , the novel ends in the World War II era, addressing issues of internment, loyalty, and multiculturalism.
Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, History
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Feature length documentary film that traces the basketball exploits of Wat Misaka, a Nisei from Utah who starred on two college basketball national championship teams and played briefly for the New York Knicks in the 1940s.
We the People: A Story of Internment in America (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Evils of racism, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Role of women
- Available
Memoir of Florin, California-based Nisei educator and activist Mary Tsukamoto co-authored by Elizabeth Pinkerton and published in 1987 when Tsukamoto was seventy-two. Though the book covers her entire life, well over half of it focuses on her and her family's wartime confinement, their resettlement in the Midwest, and eventual return to California.
What the Scarecrow Said (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Importance of community
- Facing darkness, Importance of community, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
Novel set in the last months of World War II whose protagonist is a middle-aged Nisei widower who resettles in a small New England town.
Woman from Hiroshima (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Immigrant experience, Motherhood, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
- Available
Novel by Toshio Mori written in the first-person voice of an Issei woman telling her life story to two grandchildren shortly after World War II.
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.
Arnold Knows Me: The Tommy Kono Story (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Role of men
- Widely available
Documentary film that charts Nisei Tommy Kono 's unlikely rise from a World War II concentration camp to becoming one of America's greatest Olympic style weightlifters.
An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Biography, History
- Empowerment, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Quest for power, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film that profiles Nisei politician Norman Mineta with a particular focus on his childhood years in an American concentration camp and his role forty years later in the Redress movement .
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.
Bob Sakata: American Farmer (book)
- Books
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 3-5
- Biography, Children's
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Injustice, Role of men, Coming of age
- Available
Biography for children by Daniel Blegen about a Nisei farmer in Colorado that covers his wartime incarceration in an American concentration camp.
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.
Sideways: Memoir of a Misfit (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Memoir of a young Nisei woman who was born in the Minidoka , Idaho, concentration camp. The story focuses on her often strained relationships with her parents, grandparents, and eight siblings in 1950s Chicago.
Seed: The Life of the Rice King and His Kin (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Immigrant experience, Individual versus society, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Japanese produced documentary film on Issei rice farming pioneer Keisaburo Koda and the family business he founded in Dos Palos, California.
The Black Dress (short story)
- Short Stories
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Companionship as salvation, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Progress – real or illusion
- Limited availability
Short story about a young woman who has recently left Heart Mountain to resettle in New York City in 1945. Invited to a party by co-workers at a silk screen shop, she decides to buy a new dress for the party. At the department store, she impulsively asks the friendly young female sales clerks to join her for dinner that night. Though she immediately regrets asking, the evening leads to an unexpected revelation.
The Block Manager: A True Story of Love in the Midst of Japanese American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Self-preservation, Displacement
- Available
Incarceration memoir of a Nisei woman from Stockton, California, who becomes a block manager at the Stockton and Rohwer detention camps and who meets and marries her husband at the latter. The narrative follow the couple to Tule Lake and postwar Japan.
Come See the Paradise (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Drama, History, Romance
- Everlasting love, Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Widely available
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