Kazuko Tanaka and Yetsuko Saguchi are twin sisters who were born in California. When they were three years old, their family was sent by government order to a Japanese internment camp. They talk about what it was like for the Japanese community during the World War II era as well as their family's experience at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas.
Robert "Bob" Yada was a child when his family was sent from California to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas. His family remained there for the rest of the war. After the internment camps closed, few interned families remained in Arkansas. His family did stay in Arkansas and was the only one left in Arkansas within a year's time of the camp closing. He discusses what it was like for his family and others at Rohwer.
Though she was born after the time of Japanese American internment, Delphine Hirasuna talks about her family's experience, including their time at the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas. She also discusses the process of writing her book, The Art of Gaman.
Vivienne "Lie" Schiffer, daughter of Rosalie Santine Gould, discussed her newly released novel Camp Nine. Camp Nine tells the story of how a young girl's childhood was transformed by the appearance of Japanese Americans who were interned at "Camp Nine," a fictionalized version of the Rohwer Relocation Center. Schiffer also talks about her life growing up in Rohwer, Arkansas, as well as her continued research on Japanese American internment.
Students will examine and understand that in extreme cases such as a World War II, fear can override justice. They will review how the Japanese were moved from California and other areas into relocation camps in Arkansas during World War II. They will use resources for a teacher determined task.
The goal of this unit is to introduce students to the concept of the Japanese relocation camps used during World War II in Arkansas. Students will organize information.
Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in WW II in Arkansas | www.ualr.edu/lifeinterrupted
Children of the Camps: The Documentary Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) | www.pbs.org/childofcamp
Japanese American National Museum | www.janm.org
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project | www.densho.org/archive
Smithsonian: National Museum of American History | americanhistory.si.edu
National Archives – Japanese Relocation and Internment During World War II | www.archives.gov
The Hawaii Nisei Project | nisei.hawaii.edu
Go For Broke National Education Center | www.goforbroke.org
442nd Regimental Combat Team Historical Society Website | www.the442.org
Resources from the Central Arkansas Library System | cals.bibliocommons.com
Artifacts of Loss: Crafting Survival in Japanese American Concentration Camps
Jane E. Dusselier
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008
Democratizing the Enemy: The Japanese American Internment
Brian Masaru Hayashi
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008
The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
Delphine Hirasuna
Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 2005
Concentration Camps on the Home Front: Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow
John Howard
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008
Justice Delayed: The Record of the Japanese American Internment Cases
Peter Irons, ed.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989
Judgment without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment during World War II
Tetsuden Kashima
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003
Henry Sugimoto: Painting an American Experience
Kristine Kim
Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2000
Historical Memories of the Japanese American Internment and the Struggle for Redress
Alice Yang Murray
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008
Japanese American Internment during World War II: A History and Reference Guide
Wendy L. Ng
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002
War and Wartime Changes: The Transformation of Arkansas, 1940-1945
C. Calvin Smith
Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1986
To the Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu
George Takei
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994
Rising Sons: The Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II
Bill Yenne
New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007
Anderson, William G. "Early Reaction in Arkansas to the Relocation of Japanese in the State." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 23 (Autumn 1964): 196-211.
Bearden, Russell E. "The False Rumor of Tuesday: Arkansas's Internment of Japanese-Americans." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 41 (Winter 1982) 327-339.
---. "Life Inside Arkansas's Japanese American Relocation Centers." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 47 (Summer 1989): 170-196.
Ward, Jason Morgan. "'No Jap Crow': Japanese Americans Encounter the World War II South." Journal of Southern History 73 ( February 2007): 75-104.
Ziegler, Jan Fielder. "Listening to 'Miss Jamison': Lessons from the Schoolhouse at a Japanese Internment Camp, Rohwer Relocation Center." Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 33 (August 2002): 137-146.
Allbritton, Nicole Ashley. "The Women of Japanese-American Internment, with Emphasis on Rohwer and Jerome." MA thesis, University of Arkansas, 2010.
Cashion, Scott. "Actions Speak Louder than Words…Sometimes: Reactions to the Wartime Evacuation and Internment of Japanese-Americans at Rohwer and Jerome." MA thesis, University of Arkansas, 2006.
Jensen, Gwendolyn M. "The Experience of Injustice: Health Consequences of Japanese American Internment." PhD diss., University of Colorado, 1997.
Moss, Dori Felice. "Strangers in Their Own Land: A Cultural History of Japanese American Internment Camps in Arkansas, 1942-1945." MA thesis, Georgia State University, 2007.
Twyford, Holly Feltman. "Nisei in Arkansas: The Plight of Japanese American Youths in the Arkansas Internment Camps of World War II." MA thesis, University of Arkansas, 1993.
The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the Internment Camps, 1942-1945: Wright Art Gallery October 13 through December 6, 1992. Los Angeles, CA: Japanese American National Museum, 1992.
The research collections and offices are located in the Arkansas Studies Institute (ASI) at 401 President Clinton Ave, located on the Main Library campus in the River Market. The ASI is a partnership between CALS and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, through which the two institutions have made more than 10 million documents and photographs on Arkansas history available for public use.
This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service. And opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of the Interior.
