Suggested Thesis: Although Japanese Americans endured harsh condition in the internment camps, they attempted to make life as normal as possible.
How to support this thesis:
Create 5 projects that reveal the conditions in the internment camps were harsh, yet Japanese Americans attempted to make life as normal as possible.
Most of the 110,000 persons removed for reasons of 'national security' were school-age children, infants and young adults not yet of voting age."
"Years of Infamy", Michi Weglyn
"I remember the soldiers marching us to the Army tank and I looked at their rifles and I was just terrified because I could see this long knife at the end . . . I thought I was imagining it as an adult much later . . . I thought it couldn't have been bayonets because we were just little kids."
-from "Children of the Camps"
Please note that the following links are to get you started on your research.
Interment Camps
Exploring Japanese American Internment Camps Two-thirds were American citizens. Over half were children or infants.
Their "crime": their Japanese ancestry.
Forty-six years later our government officially apologized for this "grave injustice" and paid reparations.
Could it happen again to another group of Americans?
Japanese Internment Camps in the USA
Manzanar National Historic Site Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II.
Japanese-American Relocation Camps
Japanese-Americans: The War at Home Norman Mineta's story is just one boy's experience of living in an internment camp. Every Japanese American from this time in history has his or her own story to tell. This is Norman's. (GIVES BEST BACKGROUND INFORMATION--READ FIRST)
Japanese Internment Camps and Their Effects LIFE DURING · LIFE AFTER · RESOURCES
Exploring the Japanese American Internment The text and video clips featured in this section present glimpses of the upheaval, uncertainty, terror and outrage experienced during the Japanese American Internment. Make sure that you look at the multiple links on this site--This is an excellent site with many videos and a great deal of information(Please note for most video, you will need to click the start button)
Japanese-American Internment Camps The Japanese-American (Nisei) and the Japanese aliens (Issei) on the West Coast were rounded up and moved to assembly centers and then to internment camps. ...
Camp Harmony Exhibit This exhibit tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as "Camp Harmony."
Children of Minidoka Although surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers, the children still experienced many of the same activities as children did outside of camp. This web site presents selected documents illustrating children's lives in Minidoka.
Heart Mountain -- A Story Worth Remembering
Health Impact Long-term health consequences included psychological anguish as well as increased cardiovascular disease.
"Most Honorable Son" personal odyssey of this Nebraska-born Nisei whose sense of shame over the bombing as a Japanese American and sense of loyalty to his country as a native-born American drove him to enlist to fight the Axis powers
War Relocation Camps of World War II: When Fear was Stronger than Justice
Baseball behind barbed wire For those that remained in the internment camps, baseball became what Nakagawa calls "a saving grace
Life in a WWII Japanese-American Internment Camps Baseball Saved Us is a story about a young American boy of Japanese descent named Shorty who is forced to leave his home and move to an army prison camp for the duration of the war.Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution
Brief History of Heart Mountain
The War Relocation Centers of World War II: When Fear was Stronger than Justice
Japanese American Exhibit & Access Project
Internment of San Francisco Japanese
Letters Written in Camp
Dear Miss Breed: Letters From Camp
Read a collection of letters written by Japanese-American kids and teenagers.
Japanese Americans in Oregon
Shock and Resolve: Oregon Reacts to Pearl Harbor
The "Japanese Question" Confronts Oregon
Oregon's Japanese Americans Learn Their Fate
Japanese Americans Move to the Portland Assembly Center
Not Exactly Paradise: Japanese American Internment Camps
Behind the Fence: Life in the Internment Camp
Idealism and Resentment: Two Sides of Internment Camp Life
Into the Sugar Beet Fields: Japanese American Laborers
Photographs
Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
PHOTOGRAPHS Photographs from multiple sources
Impounded Lange's photographs make her condemnation of the internment policy quite clear, clear enough that the army brass did not want the pictures publicly released. After the war, they were deposited in the National Archives. A few have been used by scholars and a small selection in a publication of several different photographers' work by the Asian American Studies Center of the University of California/ Los Angeles, but Lange's images have never been published or exhibited on their own. Now a new book features 119 out of the approximately 800 photographs she made: Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, edited by Linda Gordon and Gary Y. Okihiro (Norton, 2006).
Drawings
U. S. Government Produced Films
Please note these are films made by the U.S. government giving reasons why Japanese Americans should be placed in internment camps.
Challenge to Democracy, A (1944) Government-produced film attempting to defend the massive internment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II.
Japanese Relocation (ca. 1943) U.S. government-produced film defending the World War II internment of Japanese American citizens.
Japanese Relocation: Typical Relocation Center (1943) Producer: War Information Office Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Japanese Relocation: Work At The Center (1943) Producer: War Information Office Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Japanese Relocation: Second Wave of Japanese Leave For Relocation Centers (1943) Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Japanese Relocation: Abandoned Japanese Businesses (1943) Producer: War Information Office
Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Japanese Relocation: Building More Housing For More Relocated Japanese Yet To Come (1943) Producer: War Information Office
Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Japanese Relocation: Japanese Children And Teacher (1943) Producer: War Information Office
Audio/Visual: silent, black and white
Milton Eisenhower Explains U.S. Reasons For Japanese Relocation (1943) Producer: War Information Office Audio/Visual: sound, black and white
Historical Propaganda - Japanese Internment WWII Same film as above except found on TeacherTube
Hope in the Time of Fear
(3 Films from multiple perspectives--scroll down to find the films)Hope in Time of Fear Part 1 of 3
Hope in a Time of Fear Part 2 of 3
Hope in a Time of Fear Part 3 of 3
Assorted Videos of First Person Accounts of Life in Japanese American Internment Camps
CHILDREN OF THE CAMPS VIDEO "Please release my father"
Children of the Camps: I remember the soldiers
"Who were these men who died so bravely? What caused them to fight so furiously?"
YOUTUBE VIDEO: Japanese American Internment Camps -History 12
Assorted Web Sites Associated with Japanese American Internment During WW II
Documents and Photographs Related to Japanese Relocation During World War II
WWII Japanese American Internment and Relocation Records in the National Archives
Worksheets that can be useful for the project:
Daily Life in an Internment Camp
Motion Picture Analysis Worksheet
Sound Recording Analysis Worksheet
Written Document Analysis Worksheet
Resources:
Multigenre Rubrics and Checklists
Genre Templates and Directions
Date This Page Was Last Edited:
March 22, 2009