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Photos from the Library of Congress and the National Archives: Manzanar Camp from watchtower (photographer: Ansel Adams) Japanese American children in camp (National Archives), and Japanese Americans lining up for food at a camp in San Bruno, CA (photographer: Dorothea Lange)
Brief history of Japanese American Incarceration, for anyone who needs a little more background:
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration
Vocabulary: Nisei, Issei, internment
JAPANESE INTERNMENT ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH
JAPANESE INTERNMENT ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH
First, visit the Densho Repository (a nonprofit oral history project about Japanese American Internment based in Washington state) to listen to your group's assigned interview with a survivor of Japanese Internment in World War II. Please notice that all interviews also have a written transcript provided, so you don't have to take notes while listening. Just focus on what the internment survivor is saying and notice the details of their account.
Group 1: Grace Sugita Hawley: Witnessing the Bombing of Pearl Harbor
Group 2: Nelson Takeo Akagi: Facing discrimination in CA as a child
Group 4: Sharon Tanagi Aburano: Packing and saying goodbye to go to an internment camp, racial segregation prior to WWII
Group 6: Robert Mizukami: Deciding to sell their land rather than lose it
Group 7: Aiko Herzig: Life in the camps #1
Group 8: Paul Bannai: Life in the camps #2
Group 9: Nelson Takeo Akagi: Being called a "Jap" in basic training
Group 10: Nelson Takeo Akagi: "voluntary" forced labor on a sugar beet farm
Next, choose THREE (3) key concepts related to the person in your interview to research using the links below. You can add other key concepts mentioned by the person if you want, and you can use other websites beyond the ones given here; this is just to get you started. Remember to check that each source is created by a reliable expert person or organization.
Finally, prepare a slide deck sharing the key points from both the interview and your research, including:
Explain what the 3 concepts are with citations from your research
At least 3 relevant photos from the time period
At least 2 quotations from the interview (see transcript) to show the connections between the interview and the key concepts you researched
A Works Cited slide with citations for both the photos and researched information
KEY CONCEPTS RESEARCH:
KEY CONCEPTS RESEARCH:
Group 1: Pearl Harbor (Grace Sugita Hawley)
Suggested keywords to look up: Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor attack WWII, December 7, 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt "the day that will live in infamy," American involvement in WWII, U.S. Pacific Fleet WWII
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/December_7,_1941/
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/pearl-harbor-december-7-1941
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/pacific-strategy-1941-1944
"Nearly half of the civilians killed on Pearl Harbor day were Japanese American" https://densho.org/catalyst/remembering-pearl-harbor/
"The Road to Pearl Harbor" https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/pearl-harbor
"How Pearl Harbor Changed Japanese Americans" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38362504
Group 2: Discrimination before Japanese internment (Nelson Takeo Akagi)
Suggested keywords to look up: anti-japanese discrimination united states prior to WWII, prejudice against Japanese Americans prior to World War II, Immigration Act of 1924, alien land laws
https://densho.org/learn/introduction/a-community-grows/
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Anti-Japanese%20exclusion%20movement/
https://www.njamemorial.org/discrimination
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Immigration_Act_of_1924/
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Alien_land_laws/
Group 3: Executive Order 9066 (Sue Kitomi Embrey)
Suggested keywords to look up: Executive Order 9066, Fred Korematsu, Korematsu v. United States Supreme Court case, War Relocation Authority, Munson Report
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Executive%20Order%209066/
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-supreme-court-issues-the-korematsu-decision
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/korematsu-v-united-states
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
Groups 4, 5, and 6: Relocation (Sharon Tanagi Aburano; Nelson Takeo Akagi; Robert Mizukami)
Suggested keywords to look up: War Relocation Program WWII, War Relocation Authority, Japanese American property loss WWII, assembly centers WWII Japanese internment, alien land laws, Japanese American Citizens League (Robert Mizukami's interview)
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Assembly_centers/
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-was-life-like-in-japanese-american-internment-camps
https://densho.org/catalyst/sold-damaged-stolen-gone-japanese-american-property-loss-wwii/
Groups 7 and 8: Life in the Camps
Suggested keywords to look up: life in Japanese American internment camps WWII, Japanese American Citizens League, food/nutrition in Japanese Internment camps, living conditions in Japanese internment camps
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation (scroll down past the pictures to the text)
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-was-life-like-in-japanese-american-internment-camps
https://www.pbs.org/childofcamp/history/
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Music%20in%20camp/
Group 9: Japanese Americans fighting in WWII, despite facing discrimination and incarceration at home
Suggested keywords to look up: Japanese American soldiers in WWII, 442nd Regimental Combat Team
See the section of this article about Lawson Iichiro Sakai : https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38362504
https://www.nvlchawaii.org/442nd-awards-return-to-hawaii/
https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Japanese_Americans_in_military_during_World_War_II/
https://www.nps.gov/perl/learn/historyculture/japanese-american-units-of-world-war-ii.htm
This site profiles some individual soldiers: https://www.thenmusa.org/nisei-soldiers-in-world-war-ii/
Group 10: Forced labor (Nelson Takeo Akagi)
Suggested keywords to look up: coerced labor Japanese Americans WWII, farm labor Japanese Internment, sugar beet farming Japanese American internment
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration-camps-coerced-labor
https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/threats-sugar.aspx
Places to get historical photos:
Places to get historical photos:
https://anchoreditions.com/blog/dorothea-lange-censored-photographs
https://www.history.com/news/japanese-internment-camp-wwii-photos
https://densho.org/catalyst/category/photography/
https://www.loc.gov/ and change the drop down at the top to "Photos"
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