FICTION

 

The Magic of Ordinary Days – Ann Howard Creel

Near the end of World War II, pregnant Olivia Dunne is forced into marriage and banished to a remote Colorado farm, where she develops a relationship with her new husband and with two Japanese-American sisters living in a nearby internment camp. Fiction/Creel

 

Tallgrass – Sandra Dallas

Her life turned upside-down when a Japanese internment camp is opened in their small Colorado town, Rennie witnesses the way her community places suspicion on the newcomers when a young girl is murdered, an event that prompts Rennie's own perspective change and the discovery of dangerous secrets.  Fiction/Dallas

 

Snow Falling On Cedars: a novel - By David Guterson

Off the coast of Washington in 1954, a fisherman is found drowned, and a Japanese-American is charged with his murder. The trial is haunted by memories of what happened to the Japanese residents during World War II.  Fiction/Guterson

 

The Color of the Sea – John Hamamura

Separated from his Japanese-American family and girlfriend by the interment practices of World War II, martial arts master Sam Hamada is recruited by the U.S. Army for a secret mission in Japan, where he finds himself torn between cultures. Fiction/Hamamura

 

Legend of Fire Horse Woman - By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Houston draws from personal experiences in this artistically descriptive novel of courage, war, family and prejudice told through the life of a picture bride who is later imprisoned with her daughter and granddaughter in an internment camp during World War II.  Fiction/Houston

 

Obasan – Joy Kogawa

Based on the author's own experiences, this award-winning novel was the first to tell the story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War. Fiction/Kogawa

 

The Climate of the Country – Marnie Mueller

This is the vivid, complex story of the Tule Lake Japanese American Segregation Camp from the unique insider view of a conscientious objector, and his wife, living and working in the camp.  Fiction/Mueller

 

No-no Boy – John Okada

Ichiro, a Japanese-American, returns to Seattle, Washington after spending two years in an internment camp, and another two years in prison. Fiction/Okada

 

 

 

 

When the Emperor was Divine – Julie Otsuka

After a woman whose husband was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy sees notices posted around her neighborhood instructing Japanese residents to evacuate, she moves with her son and daughter to an internment camp, abruptly severing her ties with her community.  The perspective shifts among different family members as the story unfolds.  Fiction/Otsuka

 

Why She Left Us – Rahna Rizzuto

After giving birth to a child out of wedlock on the eve of World War II, Emi Okada flees to the U.S. where she endures internment in the Colorado desert and then embarks on a lifetime of unraveling the family secrets that have shaped her troubled existence.  Fiction/Rizzuto

 

Silent Honor – Danielle Steel

In 941, 18 year-old Hiroko, is sent by her father to California to attend college and finds herself caught in the shattered lives of the Japanese Americans in the U.S. following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and imprisoned in an internment camp with her host family.  Fiction/Steel

 

All the Way Home: a novel - By Ann Tatlock

A lonely little girl becomes part of a Japanese-American family until they are sent to an internment camp.   Years later she is reunited with her childhood friends when as a journalist she writes stories about civil rights in Mississippi.  Fiction/Tatlock

 

Sophie and the Rising Sun - By Augusta Trobaugh

The bombing of Pearl Harbor is pivotal to the growing relationship between a spinster schoolteacher and a Japanese-American gardener living in a small southern town. A moving account of what happens to love in times of war and prejudice.  Fiction/Trobaugh

 

Picture Bride: a novel - By Yoshiko Uchida

HanaŐs story begins in California as one of several hundred Japanese "picture brides" whose arranged marriages brought them to America in the early 1900s.  The family saga continues through the unrest and cruelty of World War II when they are imprisoned in desert detention camps and their spirit and courage help them survive many tragedies.  Fiction/Uchida

 

 

NON-FICTION BOOKS

 

 

The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 142-1946 – Delphine Hirasuna (2005)

A photographic collection of arts and crafts made in the Japanese American internment camps during World War II, along with a historical overview of the camps.  704.0869/Hirasuna

 

Behind Barbed Wire: The Imprisonment of Japanese Americans During World War II – Daniel S. Davis (1982)

Discusses the forced internment of Japanese Americans in camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor, their way of life there, and their eventual assimilation into society following the war.  j940.54/D

 

By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans – Greg Robinson (2001)

Robinson traces FDR's outlook back to his formative years, and to the early twentieth century's racialist view of ethnic Japanese in America as immutably "foreign" and threatening.  The book explains how a great humanitarian leader and his advisors could have implemented such a profoundly unjust and undemocratic policy toward their own people.   940.5308/Robinson

 

Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference – Joanne Oppenheim (2006)

In the early 1940's, Clara Breed was the children's librarian at the San Diego Public Library. But she was also friend to dozens of Japanese American children and teens when war broke out in December of 1941. The story of what happened to these American citizens is movingly told through letters that her young friends wrote to Miss Breed during their internment. This remarkable librarian and humanitarian served as a lifeline to these imprisoned young people. 940.531/Oppenheim

 

Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel – Richard Minear (1999) 

During World War II, Geisel worked as a political cartoonist for the New York daily newspaper PM. In these extraordinarily Geisel presents "a provocative history of wartime politics".  Commentary by the historian Richard H. Minear places them in the context of the national climate they reflect.  741.5973/Minear

 

Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment - By Jeanne Wakatsuki (2002)

The story of a child born in America who was forced to grow up behind barbed wire when she was imprisoned with her courageous family in an internment camp.  940.54/Houston

 

Free to Die for Their Country: The Story of the Japanese American Draft Resisters in World War II – Eric L. Muller (2001)

In 1942, the federal government forced West Coast Japanese Americans into detainment camps on suspicion of disloyalty. Two years later, it demanded even more, drafting them into the same military that had been guarding them as subversives. Most of these Americans complied.  This book tells the powerful story of those who refused.  940.53/Muller

 

Impounded : Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment - Dorothea Lange (2006)

During the first half of 1942, photographer Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) worked tirelessly to document the process of the imprisonment of 110,000 Japanese Americans. Although commissioned by the U.S. War Relocation Authority, Lange's photographs were suppressed and later retired to the National Archives.  940.5308/Lange

 

Just Americans : how Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad – Robert Asahina (2006)

Focusing on the crucial period of October-November 1944, this is the story of the 100th Battalion/442d Regimental Combat Team - a segregated unit of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland - which became the most decorated unit in American military history for its size and length of service. 940.5421/Asahina

 

Justice at War – Peter Irons (1983) 

Peter Irons' exhaustive research has uncovered a government campaign of suppression, alteration, and destruction of crucial evidence that could have persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down the internment order. Irons documents the debates that took place before the internment order and the legal response during and after the internment.  342.73/I

 

Last Witnesses: Reflections on the Wartime Internment of Japanese Americans – Erica Harth (2001)

Sixty years after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and FDR's Order 9066 led to the incarceration of more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent, one question remains: 'Could it happen again?'  To the writers in this book - novelists, memoirists, activists, scholars, students, professionals - the WWII internment of Japanese Americans is an unfinished chapter of American history. Former internees and their children join with others in challenging readers to construct a better future by confronting the past.  940.5472/Last

 

Manzanar - By Ansel Adams (1988)

Well known American photographer, Ansel Adams documents the story of the Manzanar Camp in California through photographs of this little known facility.  940.5472/A

 

 

 

Only What We Could Carry – The Japanese American Internment Experience (2000)

The only anthology of its kind, Only What We Could Carry is a collection of literature from the internment experience, including poetry and fiction written and published in the camps, personal diaries, letters, and the haunting recollections of other American citizens who saw what was happening.  940.5308/Only

 

The Politics of Prejudice : the Anti-Japanese Movement in California, and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion – Roger Daniels (1980)  323.1/D

 

Prisoners Without Trial:  Japanese Americans in World War II - By Roger Daniels (2001, c. 1993)

Prisoners Without Trial presents a concise introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. With a revised final chapter and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels's updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation's past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again.  940.5308/Daniels

 

Uprooted Americans: The Japanese Americans and the War Relocation Authority During World War II – Dillon Myer (1971) 940.5472/M

 

Years of Infamy : The Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps – Michi Weglyn, Michi (1996) 940.5315/Wedlyn

In the early part of World War II, 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were interned in relocation centers. Manzanar, the first of ten such concentration camps, was bounded by barbed wire and guard towers, confining 10,000 persons, the majority being American citizens. May the injustices and humiliation suffered here as a result of hysteria, racism and economic exploitation never emerge again.

 

 

VIDEOS

 

Come See the Paradise

Set against the backdrop of a dramatic and controversial period in American history, this story follows the romance and eventual marriage of Irish American Jack McGurn and Japanese American Lily Dawanura at the outset of World War II.  Feature film, 2006, rated R, 33 minutes

 

Go for Broke

This 1951 movie starts Van Johnson as Mike Grayson, the commanding officer of the 442nd.  It depicts the regimentŐs prowess as soldiers and shows how GraysonŐs prejudice slowly erodes as his respect for his men grows.  Several members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team appear as part of the cast.  Feature film, 1951, not rated, 92 minutes

 

Going for Broke

With archival footage and interviews with veterans, this film chronicles the achievements and the eventual impact of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated U.S. Army unit comprised mostly of Japanese Americans. 

Documentary, 2005, not rated, 75 minutes

 

Snow Falling on Cedars

In the 1950Ős, a murder trial has upset a small community in the Pacific Northwest.  With post-war anti-Japanese sentiments are still running high, the tranquil village has become the center of controversy. Feature film, 2000, rated PG-13,127 minutes

 

Time of Fear

This film is an excellent overview of the impact the internment had on the lives of the 16,000 people who were sent to two camps in southeast Arkansas.

Documentary, 2005, not rated, 60 minutes

 

Unfinished Business

Here is the story of three men who courageously defied the government and were separately convicted and imprisoned for violating Executive Order 9066.  It catches up with them 40 years later as they fight to overturn their original convictions. 

Documentary, 2005, not rated, 58 minutes