Browse > Theme > Power of the past
164 articles
Silent Sacrifice: Stories of Japanese-American Incarceration in Central California and Beyond (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Evils of racism, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Sprawling documentary film on the wartime incarceration story of Japanese Americans from Central California, focusing on the experiences at the Fresno , Pinedale , Merced , and Tulare Assembly Centers. In addition to interviews with survivors and descendants, there are many brief silent reenactments of scenes describes by the narrators. The last quarter of the film focuses on Saburo and Marion Masada's pilgrimage to the Jerome and Rohwer sites, where Saburo had been incarcerated with his family as a child.
Stamp Our Story: Honoring America's Nisei Veterans (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy, Heroism - real and perceived
- Available
Documentary film that chronicles the campaign that led to a 2021 postage stamp that pays tribute to Nisei soldiers. The film features the three Nisei women who began the campaign— Fusako "Fusa" Takahashi, Aiko Ogata King, and Chizuko "Chiz" Ohira—along with Sansei Wayne Osako—and includes interviews with Nisei veterans and family members of the women.
80 Years Later (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Circle of life, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film by Celine Parreñas Shimizu that explores in the impact of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans on three generations of family members.
Namba: A Japanese American's Incarceration and Life of Resilience (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Empowerment, Heroism – real and perceived, Power of the past, Role of women
- Available
Documentary profile of Nisei activist May Namba told through interviews, narration by her granddaughter, Miyako Namba, and comments by scholars and colleagues she worked with in Seattle. One of the Nikkei Seattle school employees forced to resign in 1942, Namba saw her father interned before she and her family were forcibly removed and held at Puyallup and Minidoka . Years later, she was a key figure in the movement for redress for the school employees and in Minidoka Pilgrimages and the establishment of the Minidoka National Historic Site, while being a frequent speaker at schools and events in her later years.
Nisei Bowl (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Importance of community, Power of the past, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary about the denizens of a Nisei senior bowling league in Salt Lake City. While the first half is a lighthearted look at the league and the role it plays in the lives of the members, the second half delves into the origins of the league in the context of the Japanese American community in Salt Lake City, many of whom resettled there out of concentration camps, as well as the exclusion of Japanese Americans from American Bowling Congress sponsored leagues after the war.
Yonsei Eyes (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
Documentary film that follows young Yonsei siblings Mika & Lee Osaki as they go on a pilgrimage to Tule Lake in 2016, their first trip to the camp in which both of their grandfathers had been held. Mika and Lee's narration of their trip is intercut with interview footage of both grandfathers, Tsukasa Matsueda (1925–2011) and Wayne Osaki (1923–2015).
Guilty by Reason of Race (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Injustice, Evils of racism, Power of the past
- Widely available
Documentary film produced by NBC and shown nationally on September 19, 1972, as part of the NBC Reports series. It was the second major network documentary on the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans after The Nisei: The Pride and the Shame , which aired on CBS in 1965.
Rabbit in the Moon (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Injustice, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Documentary film written and directed by Emiko Omori and produced by Omori with her sister Chizuko on Japanese Americans in American concentration camps during World War II that highlights resistance and other lesser told stories. Winner of many awards and screened nationally on public television in 1999, Rabbit in Moon has become one of the most acclaimed and widely viewed feature length documentaries on this topic.
Evergreen (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical Fiction
- Facing darkness, Power of the past, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Mystery novel by Naomi Hirahara set in postwar Los Angeles and sequel to Clark and Division (2021).
Legacy of the Barracks (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Power of the past, Quest for discovery, Wisdom of experience
- Limited availability
Locally produced 1994 documentary by Los Angeles TV station KABC hosted by Tricia Takasugi about a project to bring two barracks from Heart Mountain , Wyoming, back to Los Angeles for display at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). We see volunteers in Wyoming carefully dismantling the barracks, numbering them, and loading them onto trucks, then putting one back together in a parking lot across the street from JANM, where it will accompany the exhibition, America's Concentration Camps . The second barracks was used in the core exhibition in the museum's new building that opened six years later. Several volunteers who worked on the project are interviewed, as are some JANM staffers. (Some of the interview footage with Bacon Sakatani —as well as some footage and narration—is recycled from an earlier KABC documentary, Memories of the Camps [1992].)
Fort Sill Protest (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Video documentary of the 2019 Fort Sill protest coordinated on June 22, 2019, by a coalition of progressive organizations including Tsuru for Solidarity, American Indian Movement (AIM) Indian Territory, Dream Action Oklahoma, Black Lives Matter OKC, and the Autonomous Brown Berets. This documentary includes interviews with activists, community members, and former incarcerees; news coverage of the event; highlights of speeches from the protest; and footage of their interactions with the military police. Speakers and interviewees highlight the significance of Fort Sill as a historic site of oppression, first with Native Americans imprisoned in a boarding school and prison camp, then as an incarceration site for Japanese Americans during WWII, and most recently as a detainment center for immigrant and refugee children. The documentary connects the incarceration of Japanese Americans with current immigration detention policies that have led to the separation of children from their families. The film urges solidarity amongst …
Yae Wada: 45 Years of Anger (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 6-8, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Video documentary produced by "What Does It Mean To Be American?" as part of the Mineta Legacy Project, which features an interview with former Japanese American incarceree, Yae Wada . [1] At the age of 99, Wada recounts her memories of being placed in concentration camps during World War II, and how she overcame her anger towards the experience.
History and Memory (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary, Experimental
- Injustice, Power of the past, Role of women
- Widely available
Experimental documentary film by Rea Tajiri that explores the collective memory of Japanese American incarceration through the act of remembering and forgetting. History and Memory (1991) has been frequently studied by academics and film critics for its cultural impact on the topic of Japanese American incarceration and memory.
Right of Passage (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Empowerment, Female roles, Importance of community, Power of the past
- Available
Documentary film by Janice D. Tanaka that chronicles the convoluted twenty-year history of the Redress Movement .