Browse > Time > 1940s

133 articles

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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 .

Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Grades 7-8
Young Adult
Coming of age, Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice
Widely available

Book for young adult readers by Joanne Oppenheim that tells the story of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans through the wartime correspondence between a San Diego librarian and the incarcerated young people whom she had befriended at the library.

Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Communication – verbal and nonverbal, Facing darkness, Immigrant experience, Injustice, Power of words
Widely available

Family Torn Apart is the story of the wartime experiences of Otokichi Muin Ozaki, an Issei who was a Japanese language school teacher, tanka poet, and a leader within the Japanese community in Hilo, Hawai'i. While most incarceration accounts focus on the mainland experience of the English-speaking Nisei who comprised nearly two-thirds of the incarcerated population, Ozaki's story provides insight into the incarceration experience of Hawai'i island Japanese, many of whom authorities detained at mainland incarceration sites. While this book includes radio scripts of Ozaki's incarceration experience and his own accounts of camp news, it is also comprised of letters that family and friends wrote responding to his correspondence. The variety and frequency of these letters and other sources provide intimate details of Ozaki's incarceration that lasted nearly four years. This story highlights the uniqueness of the Hawai'i experience from the perspective of an Issei observer and the impact of …

First to Go: Story of the Kataoka Family (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Injustice, Optimism – power or folly, Power of the past
Widely available

Documentary film by Myles Matsuno built around an interview with his grandmother Mary "Hisako" Matsuno, a Nisei from San Francisco, about her wartime incarceration experience at Tanforan and Topaz . Additional interview footage from a 1996 interview with Toshi Handa, Mary's sister-in-law, adds additional information. Family home movies and photographs augment the production. The title refers to Mary's father, Issei hotelier Ichiro Kataoka, who was reportedly the first Issei in San Francisco to be arrested and interned on December 7, 1941.

A Fence Away From Freedom: Japanese-Americans and World War II (book)

Books
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Power of the past
Widely available

Book for young adults that tells the story of the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans through the oral history voices of those who were children and young adults at the time.

The Fences Between Us: The Diary of Piper Davis (book)

Books
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Grades 3-5, Grades 7-8
Children's, Historical Fiction
Coming of age, Injustice, Loss of innocence
Widely available

Novel for elementary and middle schoolers about a young white teenage girl's experience of World War II including the Japanese American removal and incarceration told in the form of a diary. The Fences Between Us is part of the Dear America series, all of which are written in the form of diaries by young women/girls from various key moments in U.S. history.

Democracy Under Pressure: Japanese Americans and World War II (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice
Available

Documentary film on the wartime experience of Japanese Americans from the San Diego area, including their exclusion and subsequent incarceration at Santa Anita Assembly Center and Poston , as well as their return home. The story is told through the eyes of former inmates Ruth Takahashi Voorhies (born 1923) and Ben Segawa (born 1930), along with historian Don Estes.

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. …

Give Us This Day (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Patriotism—positive side or complications, Progress—real or illusion
Widely available

Short story by Henry H. Ebihara that presents a hopeful portrait of an Issei couple a year after resettlement . Mr. Sakamoto returns on a winter night from his night shift job at a factory to find his wife waiting for him with a hot meal. They discuss their good fortune, their son in the Military Intelligence Service in Burma, and their leaving the concentration camp with their children a year earlier.

Garden of Stones (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Role of women, Motherhood, Temporary nature of physical beauty, Power of the past, Facing darkness
Widely available

Popular novel by Sophie Littlefield centering on three generations of Japanese American women whose lives are dramatically shaped by the wartime incarceration of the elder two at Manzanar .

Ganbare Don't Give Up! (film)

Films and Video
Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Immigrant experience, Patriotism – positive side or complications, Rights - individual or societal, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
No availability

Documentary film that provides an overview of what happened to Japanese Americans in Hawai'i during World War II, focusing on the limited internment of Issei community leaders and the exploits of Japanese American men in the armed forces. Ganbare Don't Give Up! was produced as a part of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai'i's core exhibition, Okage Sama De: I am what I am because of you , which remains the only place where it can be viewed.

Heart Mountain (book)

Books
Adult
Historical Fiction
Disillusionment and dreams, Displacement, Love and sacrifice, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Widely available

Novel by acclaimed essayist and nature/travel writer Gretel Ehrlich. Set inside and outside of the Heart Mountain , Wyoming, concentration camp, Heart Mountain was published by Viking in 1988.

Home in the West (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Totalitarianism
Widely available

Short story recounting the return to California by Hirosho Yugi and his wife after their incarceration at Heart Mountain . His initial happiness is dulled when a group of neighbors try to force him out, first by burning down a shed and throwing rocks through windows, then by the burning down of their house. The day after their house is torched, they receive a telegram informing them of the death of their son in combat in Italy.

Home Is the Expatriate (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Disillusionment and dreams, Pride and downfall
Widely available

Short story by Larry Tajiri about a Nisei strandee just returned from Japan after a decade there. Joe Suzuki was a Nisei in Los Angeles who graduated high school in the mid 1930s. Unwilling to take the types of jobs available to Nisei at that time—primarily agricultural and/or manual labor type jobs—he first tried Hollywood, then went to Japan, as did many other Nisei at that time. He landed a white-collar job at a Japanese firm, but it proved to be a dead end job, and, as a Nisei, he drew suspicion from the police. He attempted to return to the U.S. in November 1941, but his ship turned around midway as war broke out, and he was stuck in Japan during the war. He returns embittered, his mother having died in an American concentration camp, and his father having resettled in Chicago .

Homecoming (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Fiction
Love and sacrifice, Motherhood, Wisdom of experience
Widely available

Short story by Toshio Mori about an Issei woman's first visit with her son Mamoru after he has been severely wounded in combat as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . "Homecoming" takes the form of a story told in the woman's first person voice to her grandchildren. It is one of several stories by Mori featuring the same woman published in the Pacific Citizen between 1949 and 1952 that later became the basis of his novel Woman from Hiroshima , published in 1978. The first half of the story is about her efforts to see her son after being allowed to leave Topaz to return to the West Coast . She is at first dismayed to learn that he has been moved to a military hospital in Auburn, California, known to be a hotbed of anti-Japanese racism. Arriving in Auburn, they see numerous anti-Japanese signs and are …

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.

American at Heart (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Heroism - real and perceived, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
No availability

Film that tells the story of the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team through historical footage (including clips from the movie Go for Broke! ), still photographs and interview with many Nisei veterans, their white commanders, and others tied to the story. American at Heart covers the origin of the units in Hawai'i and Washington, DC, basic training in Camps McCoy and Shelby, their experiences in combat in Europe, and their return to the Hawai'i and the continental U.S. after the war. The film also contrasts the experience of Japanese Americans in Hawai'i vs. those on the West Coast, outlining the mass forced removal and incarceration of the latter. Among those interviewed are General Mark Clark , the World War II commander of the Fifth Army and 15th Army Group in Europe, who discusses what he calls "the wrong decision" to send Japanese Americans to "concentration camps" and …

Remembering Manzanar: Life in a Japanese Relocation Camp (book)

Books
Grades 7-8
Grades 7-8
Young Adult, History
Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past, Reunion, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
Widely available

Book for younger children about the Manzanar concentration camp.

A Star Is Something to Steer By (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction
Coming of age, Convention and rebellion, Losing hope
Widely available

Short story by Mataileen Larkin Ramsdell about the contentious but affectionate relationship between a white high school teacher in Rohwer and an intelligent but cynical student. A young teacher from Wisconsin, Eve Erickson is immediately drawn to Joe Moriyama, the smallest boy in 11th grade homeroom class, who is constantly challenging her by pointing out the contradictions between the American creed and the treatment of Japanese Americans. In one instance, he tells her about a girl in her class who had her family farm registered in her name to get around the alien land law , but who now found herself the target of an escheat case upon the death of her father. Over time Joe and Eve come to like and respect each other. When Nisei are deemed eligible for the draft in 1944, Joe and other boys in her class are drafted, but he is uncharacteristically silent. He …

Aleut Evacuation: The Untold War Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Power of the past

Documentary film that tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of the Aleut people from their ancestral Alaskan homes to detention camps in southwest Alaska during World War II. Based on interviews with surviving inmates and their descendants and on historical photographs and documents, Aleut Evacuation proceeds in largely chronological fashion, starting with a brief portrait of the Aleut community prior to the war, then covering their forcible removal by the U.S. government—ostensibly for their own protection in the face of possible Japanese attack—and their subsequent incarceration in several different camps. Focusing first on the largest camp, Funter Bay, which held those from the Pribilof Islands, it also considers a camp on Killisnoo Island where those from Atka were held, along with Ward Lake, where those from smaller villages were incarcerated. Former inmates remember the poor and harsh conditions in the camps and the rampant health problems they …

A Thousand Paper Cranes: How Denver's Japanese American Community Emerged from Internment (film)

Films and Video
Grades 9-12, Adult
Importance of community, Power of the past, Rebirth
Widely available

Documentary film about the wartime incarceration and about Japanese Americans in Denver after the war. Scenes shot at the Amache site today serve as a backdrop for the incarceration stories, while the segments on Denver focus on the importance of Colorado Governor Ralph Carr and on Sakura Square, the symbolic center of Colorado's Japanese American community.

Allegiance (book)

Books
Grades 9-12, Adult
Historical Fiction, Mystery
Emptiness of attaining a false dream, Facing darkness, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Power and corruption
Widely available

Historical mystery novel by Kermit Roosevelt set during World War II against the backdrop of the Supreme Court and the Japanese American cases.

An Abandoned Pot of Rice (short story)

Short Stories
Grades 9-12, Adult
Memoir
Displacement, Immigrant experience, Importance of community, Progress – real or illusion
No availability

Short essay by Hisaye Yamamoto DeSoto about the Kumamoto-mura community near Oceanside, California, where her family lived just prior to World War II. The pleasant reminiscences of life there are tempered by recollections of the chaos after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the events leading up to the forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. The title of the story comes from the narrator's recollection of making a pot of rice intending to make rice balls on the day of their forced departure, but forgetting about it, leaving the full pot behind. Years later, she returns to the site of the community, which subsequently became a large military base which for a time housed tens of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees. Noting the similarities with the concentration camps she and her family were in, she observes that this group was the third group of Asians to …

Through the Lens of Russell Lee: Mathias Uchiyama's Story (film)

Films and Video
Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
Documentary
Power of the past, Working class struggles, Displacement
Widely available

Short documentary film about a Japanese American family that left the Portland Assembly Center to engage in farm labor in eastern Oregon, produced to accompany the traveling exhibition Uprooted: Japanese American Farm Labor Camps during World War II .

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