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.

This lesson plan can is geared for social studies, but can also be used in other content areas.

Trauma can result when a group of people are forced away from their schools, friends, businesses/work, neighborhoods/communities, then incarcerated without due process, under difficult conditions.
Students explore how historical and traumatic events such as Japanese American incarceration affect communities for the long term and how communities have worked to heal.

Note: This is not a ‘typical’ social studies lesson on Japanese American incarceration. It will involve working with material regarding trauma.
Activities 1 and 2 cover life skills and can be offered in the classroom at any time. (It may be ideal to teach this toward the beginning of the school year) Activity 3 is a foundational piece on what intergenerational trauma is. Activities 4, 5 and 6 go deeper into this topic.

This lesson plan is geared for social studies, but can also be used in other content areas.

Media is a powerful agent in informing us and influencing social norms in our society. In this lesson plan, students learn about how to critically consume daily information and entertainment by listening to experts in media literacy. This lesson covers concepts like media ownership, framing and spin, source, agenda, bias, contextually misleading content and misinformation and disinformation.
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Students also explore how media can affect livelihoods. They’ll study how Japanese American communities all along the west coast including in Washington state were impacted by media coverage leading into Japanese American incarceration in the 1940s and through redress and reparations in the early 1980s.

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.

Friends Across The Wires is an original, full-length play, written and directed by Laura Ferri and produced by Tamara Bunnell, exploring the impact of the Japanese American Incarceration during WWII through the lens of young people in Seattle. 

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.

This collaboration with New American History, Field Studio, and Virginia Public Media/PBS Learning is a series of open educational resources for grades 6-12 based on the Field Studio/PBS series, The Future of America's Past. Each episode in the series has an OER learning resource taking students behind the scenes to the spaces and places where untold history happened. This episode, filmed on location at Manzanar and the Japanese American National Museum, includes representations of Japanese incarceration in public spaces, archives and the arts.

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.

Learn more about the stories and legacy of over 13,000 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II at Minidoka Relocation Center, an American concentration camp in Idaho. 

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

Educational videos, documentaries, book club sessions, conversations, and a podcast produced by the Minidoka Pilgrimage that cover a variety of topics on the Japanese American WWII incarceration. Image of Minidoka Internment Camp by Dave Horalek, courtesy of Pixabay