Browse > Time > 1930s to 2010s
6 articles
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.
Rebel with a Cause: The Life of Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Empowerment, Heroism – real and perceived, Power of the past, Role of women
Biographical documentary of activist and redress researcher Aiko Herzig Yoshinaga by Janice D. Tanaka. Tanaka's mother, Grace Tanaka, was a close childhood friend of Herzig Yoshinaga's, and she juxtaposes her mother's more conventional Nisei life with Herzig's more rebellious path. Includes candid interviews with Herzig Yoshinaga's three children, husband Jack Herzig and many friends and others who knew her, in reviewing her life in a more-or-less chronological fashion from childhood, to wartime incarceration at Manzanar and Jerome , two early marriages—and divorces—that left her a single mother with three children, her life and work in New York after the war and her turn to activism, and her key role in the Redress Movement and coram nobis cases in partnership with husband Jack Herzig. In addition to the interviews with key figures in her life, Tanaka also did group interviews with friends and family members and had Herzig Yoshinaga revisit locations …
A Hero's Hero (film)
- Films and Video
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Documentary
- Convention and rebellion, Heroism – real and perceived, Individual versus society, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Documentary film on Nisei draft resister Yosh Kuromiya and his nephew, civil rights activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya, directed by Robert Shoji. The film begins with Shoji's first person narration of meeting Yosh Kuromiya and with scenes of Kuromiya, shot shortly before his 2018 passing, in which he discusses growing up in the San Gabriel Valley before the war and being forcibly removed with his family to the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp, where he was among the young men who resisted the draft, subsequently serving time in prison. The film then follows him to the cemetery, where he visits the resting place of Kiyoshi, while recalling his life of activism. An audio interview of Kiyoshi continues the story of his role in the Civil Rights Movement and as founder of the Critical Path newsletter that provided crucial information about HIV/AIDS. The film ends with Shoji expressing gratitude for having met …
Oh! Poston, Why Don't You Cry for Me? And Other Stops Along the Way (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Convention and rebellion, Quest for discovery, Role of Religion – virtue or hypocrisy
- Available
Memoir by Paul Okimoto, a Nisei who grew up in San Diego, California, and spent his childhood years incarcerated with his family at Poston . Postwar chapters tell stories of his many travels, business ventures, and encounters with notable people. The title of the book comes from a Nisei adaptation of the song "Oh! Susanna" sung in Poston.
Jinan: A Japanese American Story of Duty, Honor, and Family (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Capitalism – effect on the individual, Family – blessing or curse, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice
- Available
Memoir of a Kibei man whose story takes him from Los Angeles to Hiroshima and back, to " voluntary evacuation " in Colorado, and postwar business success back in Southern California.
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.