Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator David Richman for his AP World History course. Adaptable to US History. Adaptable to other grades. Assignments ask students research the effects Executive Order 9066 had on families of Japanese descent, to analyze primary sources, and to create an illustrated story book detailing Ms. Wakatsuki’s time spent at Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp.

Students will examine how patriotism comes in many forms through an analysis of the short film "Patriotism and Protest." In the film, experts and Minidoka survivors highlight how the infamous "loyalty questionnaire" during WWII divided the Japanese American community.   

Students will examine how news outlets and government propaganda shaped war hysteria and racism against Japanese Americans during WWII. In the short film, "Power of the Press," students will learn about the pre-war racism against Asian Americans and how community allyship can have a profound effect in combating propaganda.  

Students will examine how language shapes public perception through an analysis of the short film "Power of Words." In the film, experts highlight the various euphemisms used by the US government to describe the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and how the language used to describe this event did not match the reality.  

Students will examine the responsibility of citizens through an analysis of the short film "Standing Up for Others." In the film, Japanese Americans draw parallels between their experience during World War II and the experiences of Muslim Americans and asylum-seeking migrant children.  

Japanese American Memorial Pilgrimages has developed lessons, supplemental resources, and educational documentary videos to accompany the memoir Child Prisoner in American Concentration Camps by Mako Nakagawa.

These short films by Stourwater Pictures are accompanied by activities for classroom and remote teaching and learning about the story of Japanese American WWII exclusion and incarceration on Bainbridge Island and Washington State.

This is the teacher guide to accompany a viewing of Friends Across The Wires, an original play exploring the impact of the the Japanese-American Incarceration during WWII on a group of young people in Seattle. The guide offers background to the play as well as opportunities to engage with primary sources to learn about historical patterns of racism.Film, written and directed by Laura Ferri, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives license.Teacher guide, by Tamara Bunnell, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license.

“‘I would have just lived’: Surviving Japanese internment during WWII” (Part 1) is the first of a two part series that features the oral history testimony of Mitsue Salador and was written, researched, and recorded by Tatiana Bryant, with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. Listeners should note in advance that this audio Open Educational Resource includes themes of grief, xenophobia, racism, and war.

In the early 1940s, Japanese American teenager Mitsue Salador was directed to go to college for nursing because Japanese women weren’t hired as teachers at white schools. Dismayed, she entered college in Portland, OR to study nursing briefly, before she was forced into an urban detention center for people of Japanese heritage after Pearl Harbor. Mitsue organized a loophole escape from the detention center by applying to a college in the Midwest where she would be deemed as less of a potential threat away from active war theaters. Isolated from her family, she continued her education while her parents and youngest sibling survived an internment camp and older siblings navigated college and active military service. In Part 1, Mitsue Salador of Long Island, NY via Hood River, OR, talks about her lived experience as a college student and daughter of Japanese immigrants before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“‘I would have just lived’: Surviving Japanese internment during WWII (Part 2)” is the second of a two part series that features the oral history testimony of Mitsue Salador and was written, researched, and recorded by Tatiana Bryant, with the support of the Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. Listeners should note in advance that this audio Open Educational Resource includes themes of grief, xenophobia, racism, and war.

In the early 1940s, Japanese American teenager Mitsue Salador was directed to go to college for nursing because Japanese women weren’t hired as teachers at white schools. Dismayed, she entered college in Portland, OR to study nursing briefly, before she was forced into an urban detention center for people of Japanese heritage after Pearl Harbor. Mitsue organized a loophole escape from the detention center by applying to a college in the Midwest where she would be deemed as less of a potential threat away from active war theaters. Isolated from her family, she continued her education while her parents and youngest sibling survived an internment camp and older siblings navigated college and active military service.

In Part 2, Mitsue Salador of Long Island, NY via Hood River, OR, talks about her lived experience as a college student and daughter of Japanese immigrants forced to relocate to a detention center after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As part of Washington's Kip Tokuda Memorial Civil Liberties Public Education Program, which strives to educate the public regarding the history and the lessons of the World War II exclusion, removal, and detention of persons of Japanese ancestry, KSPS Public Television and Eastern Washington educators Starla Fey, Leslie Heffernan, and Morgen Larsen have produced Injustice at Home: the Japanese American experience of the World War II Era.

This educational resource--five educational videos and an inquiry-based unit of study--will help students understand Executive Order 9066 and the resulting internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the failure of political leadership to protect constitutional rights, the military experience of Japanese-Americans during WWII, and examples of discrimination and racial prejudice the Japanese-American community faced before, during and after WWII.

In addition, students will analyze the short and long term emotional effects on those who are incarcerated, identify the challenges that people living outside of the exclusion zone faced, examine how some Japanese Americans showed their loyalty during the period of incarceration, and learn about brave individuals who stood up for Japanese Americans during this time.

With KSPS's Injustice at Home: Overcoming Discrimination and Adversity (a series of four educational videos and a curriculum unit), grade school students will learn the stories of Frank C. Hirahara, Kazuko Sakai Nakao, Kaz Yamamoto, and Fred Shiosaki through oral history interviews. As survivors of the Japanese Incarceration
Camps during WWII, the powerful stories of these survivors reveal the damaging nature of racial discrimination upon the Japanese American community.

Throughout the unit, Grades 4-6 students will witness the fortitude and courage of those who suffered racial discrimination but overcame it due to the resiliency of their culture and character. Students will analyze paintings and poetry made by incarcerated Japanese American youth to determine the diverse impact on their daily lives. Students will conclude the unit by creating a biographical presentation of one of the survivors and demonstrate what can be learned from those who have experienced and overcome
discrimination.

Japanese Americans suffered terrible injustices as a result of governmental policies during World War II that discriminated against them by treating them like enemies. In this lesson, students examine what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, what constitutional rights were violated in the process, and why such a massive injustice happened.

2021 Social Science Standards Integrated with Ethnic Studies:
Civics and Government: 2.4, 3.2, 5.1, 6.4
Economics: 1.4, 4.4
Geography: 5.13
Historical Knowledge: K.14, 1.12, 2.16, 5.22, 6.21
Historical Thinking: 2.21, 2.22, 6.23
Social Science Analysis: 1.19, 2.23, 2.25, 3.18, 3.19, 4.21, 4.24, 5.27, 5.28, 6.24, 6.27, 6.28

As a young man, Takashi Hoshizaki was imprisoned on McNeil Island, Washington in 1944 for resisting the draft for World War II.  His resistance was part of a broader legal battle for the civil rights of over 120,000 Japanese Americans, including Takashi's family, imprisoned in American concentration camps.  This lesson includes a 7-minute introduction video, lesson plan notes, activities, vocabulary, and educator resources.

What can we learn about characters from their thoughts and their actions?

This inquiry from the Washington State History Museum focuses on the literacy skill of using details from the text to support observations and inferences about characters. To practice this skill, students read Baseball Saved Us, a fictional story about an incarcerated Japanese American family during World War II. Students also learn about the real-life experiences of incarcerated Japanese Americans via objects from the Washington State History Museum’s collection, and other historical resources.

Each of the four lessons in this module is designed to take about 45 minutes to teach, and to be integrated
with your ELA or literacy block.

Watch the companion video, REMEMBRANCE: A Legacy of Executive Order 9066, on YouTube: https://youtu.be/s4-GfWDEukE

How does non-violent direct action function as a response to injustice?

This inquiry from the Washington State Historical Society focuses on Japanese American incarceration during World War II, and asks students to analyze Japanese Americans’ responses to this injustice through the lens of non-violent direct action. It consists of five lessons, and a suggested summative assessment, as well as possible extensions. Each lesson is intended to take between 45 and 75 minutes, and some may need to be divided over multiple class sessions.

The intent of this curriculum is not only to help students learn about what incarceration was, and why it
happened, but also to help them understand the varied responses of Japanese Americans to incarceration. They will arrive at these new understandings by practicing the skills of history including artifact analysis, identifying patterns, and developing informed empathy for historical figures. Images of and links to primary sources are provided throughout.

Watch the companion video, REMEMBRANCE: A Legacy of Executive Order 9066, on YouTube: https://youtu.be/s4-GfWDEukE

A study of the resettlement of Japanese Americans after WWII and the ongoing hardships and discrimination they experienced in the postwar years. This project was made possible through generous support from the National Parks Service Japanese American Confinement Sites program.